With Nicoletta Romanoff He chose to tell his story he owes it to a script that he wrote in 2024 linked to the attack on John Paul II, which took place on 13 May 1981. “On May 13, it is also the date of the anniversary of the apparition of the Madonna Fatima: I was going to write the last lines and, just in that instant, I thought that from that moment on my days they would be empty. The case, however, wanted that the same afternoon Rizzoli sent me an email in which he proposed to write a book: This synchronicity of dates and intentions made me understand that, perhaps, that request came from further away “, Confesses Romanoff, what about it The branch to the screw, His (beautiful) book published by Rizzoli, reflects on his path of faith Starting from the wounds and flashes that dotted his life. From the suicide of the beloved brother Enzo Manfredi that took place in 1997when she was just 18 years old, ai his four children, had from three different men, who have, engraved not a little on the judgment by those around her. We meet on the sidelines of Nicoletta’s meeting at BCT 2025the National Festival of Cinema and Television City of Benevento now in its ninth edition. Speak slowly, he chooses the word with a moving cure and his gaze does not even seek for a second refuge elsewhere.
Was it painful to reopen certain drawers of memory?
«It was very painful and very tiring, above all because my life did not allow me to withdraw on an island to clear my mind in order to abandon myself to writing. I cut out spaces, sometimes closing myself in the key to the key to indulge in a sudden inspiration and try to isolate myself from the chaos and the noise that were at home ».
The book starts from his brother’s disappearance: there was no warning of malaise and no explanation that apparently justified his gesture. Have you ever tried anger for that choice?
«No, I’ve never had it. Anger is a feeling that is within me but that I have never approached the loss of my brother. I get angry for other things ».
For what?
«For the injustices that man makes towards another man, for example. On pain like mourning, I think sadness is so great that it leaves no room for much more ».
In the book he speaks of a deaf pain that accompanies her for many years: at a certain point, he even writes that he scratched himself and nobody realized it. Why?
«I retained so much pain, probably due to the fear of facing it and for a certain basic immaturity: I was ashamed of being badly and I didn’t want to show it. I didn’t want to weigh down the pain of my parents who weighed me a lot: I wanted to try to lighten, to make everything very shiny. Over time I learned that there is nothing wrong with showing themselves vulnerable and today, as an adult person, I invite everyone to be: there is nothing more authentic than vulnerability ».
What makes vulnerability authentic?
«We all go through difficult moments and we all touch the pain in one way or another: it is a network that, if shared, can support instead of draging down. It is true, in fact, that the network can capture and hire you, but it can also support you so as not to drop you ».
Alessia Giallonardo
When he supported the audition for remember methe film by Gabriele Muccino who launched her into the world of cinema, was married and mother of two children but did not say it. Why?
«I knew that Gabriele was looking for a 17 -year -old girl: I was 23 and I was afraid that he would look at me differently if he had known that I led such an adult life, because he really was. I think, however, that he read something that coincided with the character in my gaze ».
Even from adults words can hurt. Like the assistant who told her that, after three children, her uterus would no longer conceive a quarter.
«An external light wanted, however, that I had it. Science stops where the limit of man stops, and on the one hand I think I have brought back this passage in the book for this: sometimes it would be better to keep silent, because certain words can hurt more than anything in the world. I was given an immense gift, but feeling such a phrase could curb a person to undertake a path of approach to motherhood: you have to be delicate ».
Not even the Church was delicate: a priest told her that she could not take the Eucharist because it was divorced.
«As in the case of medicine, even in the church you can meet someone extraordinary who makes you live things in a certain way and someone who speaks to you very rawly: it is the people who make the difference. This is why, when I have to make an important decision, I try to hear more and more than one voice. In the case of communion in church the same thing happened to me: there are priests who brake you but also others that welcome you and make you want to continue your way. I never stopped, putting us ten years to obtain the cancellation from the Sacra Rota so that I could take communion again ».
Also about the subject of indelicity: one of the most violent pages of the book is when, while he was about to give birth to the fourth time, the doctor judged it for having had three children from two different men.
«It is a judgment of which I am unfortunately used to. Of course, I didn’t expect it at that moment from a doctor … but what do you have to do? As I wrote in the book, at that moment I closed my eyes and I said: my gentleman, thank goodness that you don’t judge me with this severity ».
