• Benigni is Geppetto in Garrone's new fantasy Pinocchio: "It's the most beautiful story in the world"

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December 16, 2019Roberto Benigni returns to the Sanremo Festival. The announcement arrives in the 'Che tempo che' program on Rai2, where he is guest of Fazio Fazio to present the film Pinocchio with the director Matteo Garrone. "And if I go there," the Oscar-winning Fazio answers. "I'm the one who prepares it, I'm sure of it, Amadeus I don't know if it will come! - he joked - When they tell me Sanremo for me it's like saying Pinocchio, it's a fairy tale, it's the 70th anniversary, it's the most beautiful Italian party, it is truly a fairy tale! It will be an extraordinary Sanremo ".

Benigni returns to Ariston - the stage from which he launched the famous 'Wojtylaccio' - after the extraordinary performance of 2011, a home history lesson dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy: his commentary on Mameli's anthem - with the memorable entrance on stage on a white horse - the festival flew over 15.3 million spectators in the early evening, uniting the country, collecting bipartisan praise and the praise of the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano.

Besides, from record-breaking Benigni to the Ariston is not new: he touched the 20 million in 2002, guest of Pippo Baudo, when in one of the most exciting interventions of the history of the festival he presented his own version in political key of the Last Judgment and he launched in jokes about the sexual organs of Baudo himself ("I was the one who first put his hands there, even before Mrs. Ricciarelli" and down with the celebrated 'stripe'), of Berlusconi, Di Pietro, Fassino. The threat from Giuliano Ferrara, creator of the BoBe committee (BoicottiamoBenigni), held the bench throughout the week in Sanremo: Il Foglio had promised to land at the festival to throw eggs at the comedian. But then nothing came of it.

And again in 2009 his half-hour show, all focused on politics, surpassed 15 million viewers and 55% share. Space for Veltroni, Berlusconi, but also for homosexuals who "are not out of God's plan". In 2011 he was the guest of captain Gianni Morandi, with the speech dedicated to the national anthem but rich as always with current events: "Where the victory seems written by the Pd", "150 years for a nation you want them to be , she is a child ... a minor, the history of minors was born in Sanremo with Cinquetti, she passed herself off as Claudio Villa's niece. Ruby Rubacuori: I said it, if you don't like it change the channel and go to the Two : no, there is Santoro "; "he said he is Mubarak's niece, it was enough to go to the registry office in Egypt and see if Mubarak's surname is heartthrob".

Then the change of register and the exegesis of the hymn: Benigni turned into a passionate singer, mixing the analysis of the rest with history and literature and making men and women who contributed to the birth of our country emerge from the past.