WTI Magazine #16    2014 Feb, 07
Author : Simone doc Bracci      Translation by:

Romance is the best medicine invented by man. Reasoning on the idea, thinking of the potential and its benefits, calculating the possibilities we can with absolute certainty assert that from a long love story, as improbable as real, comes the best profit against angst. Now, said that, put this thought into the movies business of the 20s and 30s and think about animation. Who comes to your mind? Obviously him, the most famous "brand naming" of all time: Walter Elias Disney, most well-known as Uncle Walt.

If you can dream it, you can do it. With these words a media empire was founded, the Walt Disney Company: a company made of dreams and careers, ideas and professionals, cartoons and legendary icons. In the early decades of the last century comes to life the adventure of the designer and entrepreneur from Chicago, that Mr. Disney who jumped on a "carousel" before American and then global.

As we all know most of his fame comes from some timeless classics, cartoon movies masterpieces of all times, but Walt has recently got back to the Italian media system for some historical close encounters with our peninsula. This is described by Marco Spagnoli, who, with his documentary "Walt Disney and Italy - A long love story" lets the images to tell the story, together with the words of directors, actors and protagonists of the Italian cinema, united to tell their intimate relationship with Disney and his Italian tour at the Venice Festival.

Among them not only are Italian designers, like Silvia Ziche, but also the great masters of the past including Federico Fellini (in an interview footage), to which are added Edoardo Bennato, Riccardo Scamarcio, Micaela Ramazzotti, Fabio De Luigi, Marco Giallini, Enrico Brignano, Lillo & Greg, and Luca Ward: from childhood to adulthood through comics and cartoons.

But even his path, the one of Disney's first steps, has deep roots in Italy: back at that time it was a young banker son of Italian immigrants in America, Amedeo Giannini, who decided to finance the first full-length movie of this young man who was so convincing, or at least his eyes were. It was 1937 when "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was released in cinemas. For every great artist, there is always need of someone who economically supports their talent. Who has an eye for this gives a homage to history: if Walt Disney is immortal, he owes it a little bit to Italy, too.