Cannes’ Rogue Italian Champion
TORONTO – In a year where no Italian films were selected for Cannes’ feature program, an Italian producer managed to achieve an unprecedented artistic triumph at the Festival. Producer Marco Perego’s three films – Fjord, Minotaur, and Paper Tiger – were all selected for the main Palme d’Or competition simultaneously. Under his company’s banner, Leaf Entertainment, his films took home the two highest honours: Fjord (The Palme d’Or) and Minotaur (The Grand Prix), directed by Romanian and Russian filmmakers respectively.
Perego becomes the first producer in the festival’s 79-year history to win both the Palme d’Or and the Grand Prix in the same year. But the producer’s success follows a mercurial journey through several industries, which included a series of lightning-fast transformations. His first love: calcio. But Perego’s climb up Italy’s competitive youth and amateur ranks culminated with a career-ending leg fracture, at the age of 21.
The misfortune shattered his athletic trajectory, forcing him to completely abandon his childhood dream of playing in Italy’s top flight, Serie A. His next move was to immigrate to New York to pursue his second love: art. He worked double shifts cleaning tables as a busboy in Spanish Harlem, penniless but with a laser focus on breaking into the art scene. And that he did.
He successfully broke into the scene thanks in large part to the patronage and support of Giancarlo Giammetti, a luxury fashion icon and businessman – cofounder behind the Valentino Empire. Perego’s works would cement him as a high-tier contemporary painter and sculptor in New York.
But it was Giammetti who gave him his first injection of financial stability, recognizing early on Perego’s raw artistic vision. Through Giammetti’s endorsement and championing of his work, prominent Italians and fashion icons like Giorgio Armani, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana began purchasing his high-concept sculptures and paintings.
His third career as a filmmaker/producer began after his marriage to Guardians of the Galaxy star actress Zoe Saldaña, in 2013. A year later he was already producing a short film Me+Her (2014) and would soon thereafter executive produce the sports documentary Black and White Stripes: The Juventus Story (2016).
To some in Italy, Perego was once seen as an expatriate outsider. But with his recent success at Cannes and his company’s latest mission statement – to grant absolute creative artistic autonomy and protect pure art – the Italian Producer might become a saviour for auteur cinema.
Chapeau to Perego. Here’s to hoping that for his next projects, he can look to Italian artists as well.
In the pics, Marco Perego with his wife Zoe Saldana
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix
