Our general, the fiction about Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa that does not betray the memory

Our general talks about Italy, the recent past and the fight against the Red Brigades, this time (after Night exterior) through the eyes of Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, killed at the hands of the mafia on September 3, 1982 in via Carini, in Palermo. In the Lucio Pellegrini series (broadcast on Rai 1 on 9, 10, 16 and 17 January) it is Sergio Castellitto to take on the role of the state hero who has never let his guard down, while Teresa Saponangelo is the first wife Dora. From their union were born Nando, Rita and Simona.

It is a story that crosses ten years of Italian history (from 1973 to 1982), dark, tumultuous years, marked by the kidnappings and blows of the BR against which Dalla Chiesa constituted the first special anti-terrorism unit. It was a real innovation. The general put together a group of specialized kids (including Nicola, played by Antonio Folletto, narrator of the series) who put the defense of the state before their lives. Just like Dalla Chiesa.

«From the Church he was a man of peace who lived all his life in war», says Castellitto, «which is passing from the Resistance to the Red Brigades, to the mafia; a man tied to feelings that today are faded like honesty and self-sacrifice». “Some things you do to keep looking your children in the face,” he said. “The general looked to the future», continues the actor who struggles to talk about a series that deals with a fragment of the painful history of Italy and tells of a family whose wounds are still open.

The Dalla Chiesa family supported the project produced by Rai Fiction and Stand by Me, and they are proud of it. «This fiction releases love and passion», says the new parliamentarian Rita Dalla Chiesa, «it is difficult to talk about my father, I remember his loyalty and the respect he taught us towards others. I remember the transparency and the infinite love towards the boys of the nucleus: they were like children to him, and the series finally gives visibility to these invisible men. Paradoxically, he also created an almost paternal relationship with the repentant Red Brigade member Patrizio Peci: once in prison he only wanted to talk to my father», underlines Rita, «I would like to meet him one day, and sooner or later I will “. “My father never read the Constitution to me, he taught it to me with facts,” adds his son Nando.

Teresa Saponangelo, like the other members of the cast, have had the good fortune to deal with family members who have experienced a personal drama on their shoulders and with former anti-terrorism unit boys (now over seventy) to try to give back as much truth as possible to the public. «It was important not to betray the memory and give back the emotional truth,” says the actress of It was the hand of God“talking to Rita helped me a lot in this, even about her mother’s small daily gestures”.