MIRKO FREZZA – by Giuseppe Savarino
One cannot but be fascinated by Mirko Frezza, both for his controversial and beautiful story, and for his disruptive personality. One of the most interesting actors in the Italian cinema scene of recent times. Man engaged in the front line in the recovery of a district of Rome defined as difficult, Casale Casaletto, which has become a symbol of possible rebirth and which inspired the autobiographical story of the film “The greatest dream” directed by Michele Vannucci. I met him at the Prato Film Festival together with his inseparable and beautiful wife Vittoria, his vital fulcrum. A disarming frankness, unfiltered eloquence, a voice that stays in your head and a straight look that goes beyond your eyes, giving you the feeling that you are reading your thoughts.
A success on the rise like his life from underworld to light in a crescendo of emotions that lives on the skin and tells with a disarming humility. Mirko does not use euphemisms to conform to the glossy world of cinema where he moves with ease and great respect.
Your story has become a beautiful film, which side of Mirko we do not yet know. How do you feel today in light of your profound transformation.
Between the lines you are asking me: How am I?
Let’s start from the present. I’m getting to know myself. I did not know myself, I thought I had limits, even sentimental ones, and instead many opened up to me whose existence I did not know. In the past world I felt invincible, I did everything I liked. It didn’t matter what others said not to do. Today, however, it is important for me to live honestly, accepting fatigue without shortcuts, as men. The life where I come from, that of the uncouth can be done by everyone. This new life is a novelty and I do not hide from you that it scares me, so sometimes I ask myself: if it is the right path, if I did it for the affections I have at home, while in reality I just wanted to self-destruct as I did before .
Let’s start with the awareness that leads you to apologize when you’re wrong. Living in Italy which is a Christian country, you have a sort of second chance, you take a path, let’s say of redemption. If you are a truly dishonest person, you don’t. And on the contrary you feel alone in a world that is hungry and needs material things. You feel abandoned by the institutions. I have a tattoo on me that says: If something is wrong, whoever has the ability to act has a responsibility to do it.
Doing this while respecting both moral and justice laws is difficult both in Italy and around the world. You are more men when you can take the blows without falling to the ground even if your internal organs are devastated to prove to the world that you can to change.
I have often stated, Jesus Christ made the via crucis; I traveled it in reverse: I started from “dead” to go back. It is very difficult to go backwards with the awareness of what you were doing before and benefited from it. Today I experience contrasting situations, from the glories of the Venice Film Festival to the neighborhood association where I meet the lady who does not have the money to buy oil. The smell you feel is different: there you stay with the people who think they have the world in their hands, here with those who feel crushed. It is like a gym.
I felt bad when I went back to the old council house where I used to live. In the long corridor of one hundred and five meters I thought: How do they live here? And then I remembered that for forty-four years I had lived there without noticing anything. Dilapidation cannot lead you to be altruistic and it is also the fault of bad politics: animal traps, mold, decay. In these places you find good people but deeply resigned
