Whispers from Teetotum

 

AFAN Alessandro Fantini

Whispers from Teetotum

Oil on canvas, 40×40 cm. (2021)

 

 

Auditions and predictions

This is my second TV audition I had back in 2008 in Rome for RAI, the national Italian network. Over the following years I had some more for movie roles as well, since I’ve always been attracted by the challenge of transposing with my whole phisicality the characters depicted by screenplayers (especially when they’re original characters from my own scritps). Nevertheless, TV remains my ideal “playroom” where experimenting by melting different visual and narrative styles.

One of the member of the jury, a famous TV host, voice actor and author who’s active on screen since the ’80, sarcastically commented that my “multitasking skill”of writing, editing, directing and conducting would risk to make me the only viewer of my own programs (despite the fact he’s a multitasking artist himself).

Though, his “light” mockery and the lack of a clear feedback (or evaluation) from the jury didn’t discourage me. Instead it pushed me to launch an indie “videozine” devoted to painting, cinema, literature and music on my Youtube channel, edited as it was an actual TV format.

So far it seems the 7756 viewers gathered by the 12 episodes of my “AFANzine” (and the 1.3000.000 gained during the broadcasting of an interview of mine on RAI in 2018) don’t exactly agree with that witty prediction.

It would be interesting to know if joking about emerging talents is a typical Italian habit or a wordlwide psychoaptitude test (and if the sons of celebrities working in TV and cinema had to sustain it as well in order to pass their auditions).