On Rai1 ‘The choice of Mary’, docufilm for the hundred years of the Unknown Soldier

On November 4th one hundred years ago, after a long train journey, which has become the embrace of the whole country, the remains of an unknown soldier who fell in the Great War, are buried at the Vittoriano in Rome, during a public ceremony. A woman, Maria Bergamas, mother of Antonio, a young lieutenant who died on the battlefield and never found, was called to choose the body among the eleven representing the fallen on the various war fronts in Italy. This is the plot of ” The choice of Mary ”, the docufilm directed by Francesco Micchichè which will be broadcast tomorrow in prime time on Rai1 on the day of the hundredth anniversary of the burial of the Unknown Soldier at the Altare della Patria. In the cast, Sonia Bergamasco in the role of the “mother of Italy”, Maria, alongside Cesare Bocci, in the role of the Minister of War Luigi Gasparotto, and Alessio Vassallo, who plays Lieutenant Augusto Tognasso. “This is once again a public service operation that Rai puts in place by telling a piece of the identity of our country – underlines the director of Rai1 Stefano Coletta – I felt a great emotion watching the film, thanks to the exceptional performance of the actors, starting with Sonia Bergamasco: hers is an interpretation that does not use frills in portraying the mother of mothers, a test that leaves one amazed. of a son. It was not easy to translate the madness of this lack of mourning, which the whole cast knows how to reconstruct with great abundance. It is at the same time a current story, for us who have emerged from the pandemic, not being able to elaborate and having to compare with an anonymous mourning, that of the unnatural loss of a child. “The docufilm, which makes use of precious period repertoires, original animations and a series of reconstructed interviews ‘to the protagonists of the story, Coletta points out, “intertwines many expressive means, starting from documentarism, which both the director Micciché and Cesare Bocci have managed to marry”. The public service must alternate pieces of memory with the present and I think we managed to do it, even for young people who can trace an important piece of our country’s history. Cesare Bocci and Alessio Vassallo have generously committed themselves to make a story that is truly powerful and will reach the hearts of all of us, because it poses very strong existential themes ”. Bergamasco, ‘I approached the protagonist with modesty’The narration traces the touching moment in which Maria Bergamas, a peasant woman who has only a letter left from her son Antonio, is chosen as the “mother of Italy”. It is she, in the cathedral of Aquileia, who kneels and chooses the tenth coffin. Then, the journey of the body by train to Rome, 120 stops in 4 days, with Maria Bergamas and Lieutenant Tognasso witnessing a unique spectacle: crowds of people bow, throw flowers and pray. The story ends in Rome, where the convoy is welcomed by the “Soldier King” Vittorio Emanuele III, while at the same moment, the cities of all of Italy, unite in a long and silent moment of condolence, wanted by Minister Gasparotto, marked only from the cries of mothers, from the tolling of bells and from twenty-one cannon shots. “It was a shared work – says Sonia Bergamasco, who plays Maria Bergamas in the film – Shooting in real places was essential, as was the empathic participation of the local people, whose emotion was palpable, was a common feeling that gave value to what we did. I approached the protagonist with modesty, I never thought of immersing myself in her heart, doing it would have been something pornographic. Instead, I chose to enter the feeling of the mother, which is much more distant and profound. I did not know this story, very few know it and it is precisely for this reason that it is important to tell it because we must know it. I wanted my daughters to come to the preview so that they could see and get to know it: they were happy to cross it ”. “This is a film, more than a docufilm, which was born from an idea by Cesare Bocci – declares director Francesco Micciché – who told me a story that many of us did not know. We made it in record time, starting to write the screenplay at the end of April. The producer Gloria Giorgianni immediately believed in the project and that this story should be told on the occasion of the centenary of the Unknown Soldier. With them and with the screenwriter Marco Videtta and then with Sonia Bergamasco and Alessio Vassallo, we shared a path first of knowledge of the facts and then of great involvement. As we went forward we realized, in fact, that what we wanted to tell was a story that concerned us all closely. The tenacity of our producer – adds the director – ensured that we filmed in the true places of history, such as in the Basilica of Aquileia, in Monte San Michele and on the Isonzo, in the cemetery with 100 thousand dead, of which 60 thousand did not recognize known, of the First World War “. Del Brocco (Rai Cinema), ‘an operation that strengthens our collective memory’ “The film was born from the moving story of a grandfather who remembered the passage of the train from Aquileia to Rome with the body of the unknown soldier – declares Cesare Bocci, who plays the minister Luigi Gasparotto – A 4-day trip that was welcomed by the population at all stops. Sonia managed to restore the essentiality and pain of a woman of the people. And the pain of losing a child cannot be described better than a woman ”. “We are crossed, without even knowing it, by many stories like this – adds Alessio Vassallo, who plays the role of Lieutenant Augusto Tognasso – Nobody knows the story. My character, mutilated by the war, returns to those places where he can process what happened to him. It was a wonderful emotion to work on tiptoe with Sonia ”. “This is an operation of all Rai, not just Rai Cinema – underlines Paolo Del Brocco, CEO of Rai Cinema – A cultural operation intended for the new generations and which serves to strengthen our collective memory. It is the point of view of a mother, outside of any rhetoric and which sends you directly into the mood, which is what cinema has to do ”. “It is a project that was born with an important series of partners – says Gloria Giorgianni, CEO of Anele who co-produced the film – From the Ministry of Defense to the Istituto Luce-Cinecittà, the Aquileia Foundation, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, Intesa San Paolo and the Municipality of Aquileia, all joined with great participation in telling a piece of Italian identity from a female point of view. We realized we didn’t know this story. We have to reclaim the Italian story, too often we outsource this type of story to others, who do it with a different point of view ”.