The Who’s Who of Italian cinema pay homage to Totò in a special evening event that the RomeFilmFest is dedicating to the Prince of Laughter, on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of his death (15 April 1967).

Famous voices, exceptional narrators like Ben Gazzarra, Fred Murray Abraham, and Liliana de Curtis, along with the protagonists of Italian cinema, will tell the story of the great artist’s life in A Prince called Totò, a documentary film made by Barbara Calabresi and Diana de Curtis, which will premiere in Rome at the next edition of the RomeFilmFest.

It is all there: Totò’s friendship with Eduardo De Filippo and all his schemes not to go hungry, his extraordinary popularity in vaudeville and his consacration with cinema, his tortured love affairs, from the one with Liliana Castagnola, the gorgeous diva of the 1930s who had a tormented love affair with Totò, only to take her own life at the peak of her success, when he left her; to his wife Diana, who ran away with him at 16, leaving her boarding school; to Franca Faldini, his companion in the last years of his life.

It is an engrossing story of a life that constantly seesawed between joy and incredible success and unexpected tragedy, like the blindness that struck Totò but couldn’t stop him, or searing betrayals.

The documentary is a sort of family album that flickers past us, revealing material unknown until now, like a priceless collection of 15 comic strips from 1954, the leading character of which is Totò himself, who also wrote the texts and took charge of producing the comics; or his first film audition; but also manuscripts, love letters, poetry and songs never before published, as well as photographs that his family has made available for the first time.

‘Through the places that he loved (Capri, Viareggio, Naples, Rome, and the French Riviera),’ say Diana de Curtis and Barbara Calabresi, ‘filmgoers will discover the most secret, most intimate aspects of Antonio de Curtis, the man, the serious, melancholy prince; and Totò, the immortal artist. The RomeFilmFest is a unique occasion to hear Totò’s voice, and hear the voices that filled his life. An emotional commentary by all those who loved him, his films, his theater, his art. It is an act of love for Totò, his friends and loved ones.’

The film will premiere at the RomeFilmFest in a programme entirely dedicated to the great artist, one that will include as well material from the Rai Archives with all of Totò’s television appearances; a musical tribute, a sort of film lover’s videoclip, created expressly by Lucio Dalla; never-before-seen clips from films that were censored, being assembled by the Cineteca di Bologna; as well as a montage of his scenes edited by Enrico Ghezzi. ‘We are talking about an unconventional tribute,’ says Mario Sesti, Artistic Director of the RomeFilmFest in charge of the Extra Section, ‘that consists in a sort of trail of media presences, from TV to cinema to theater to the comic strip to music, which shows, above all, how Totò was perhaps the greatest multimedia artist in contemporary entertainment: a one-man orchestra, to quote one gag he was particularly fond of.’