Sandro Becchetti, Chiamala Roma, 2021

Becchetti’s gaze on the city, which suddenly changes face, lingers on details and particulars that make it unique, not only for its ancient and undoubted beauty: the personal and poetic vision of the places narrated, with irony and affection, passes from the transformations of the territory to the faces of its inhabitants. The common people who live there and the personalities who stay there for short or long periods, absorbing the climate and the suggestions, become witnesses of the Roman genius loci; whether they are filmed on the outskirts of the city between the new suburbs and the ancient walls, or immortalized in the austere rooms of the old and historical palaces, or among the paintings and tapestries of the bourgeois houses. The photographs dedicated to the crucial years of the student and, above all, workers’ struggles are never celebratory or predictable. Becchetti creates images that tell the story of the protests of the young through an attentive, often critical gaze, siding with empathy with the working and farming classes. Numerous and unforgettable are the portraits of international personalities from the worlds of culture, politics, entertainment made by Sandro Becchetti for the newspaper Il Messaggero and commissioned to “accompany” the historic third page of the Roman newspaper. The portraits that are intended to support the articles or interviews turn out to be small narrative masterpieces that travel independently and remain a fundamental testimony of Becchetti’s work. Among these, the intense service on Pier Paolo Pasolini, made in his Roman home in the EUR district, stands out. Other places, other faces, and other stories take Sandro Becchetti outside the city of Rome. The final images of the book narrate some aspects of rural life in the Roman and Umbrian countryside, or scenes filmed in Italian and foreign cities. A story, at times anthropological of the territories explored, in other cases his lens lingers on visions of metaphysical and Fellini-like scenarios.