Cinema, photography and a bond capable of resisting time, suffering, pain. At the age of 77, Roberto Russo, director, screenwriter and photographer, husband of Monica Vitti, died in Rome: he had married the actress in 2000, after a long engagement, and remained next to her until her death, February 2, 2022, protecting her in the difficult years of the disease from the spotlight and from the morbid curiosity of the outside world. Sick since 2023, Russo was hospitalized in a Roman RSA where he died yesterday morning around 9.30.
Born in Rome on September 23, 1947, Russo had met Vitti very young, on the set of Teresa La Ladra di Carlo di Palma: he was 25 years old, she 41. This was how a long partnership had begun, started with Flirt (1983), the first film signed by Russo, for us had won the David as the best debutant director, then followed by Francesca is Mia (1986), with the collaboration of Vincenzo Cerami. For both films he had entrusted the music to two big names of the Italian song: Francesco De Gregori, who for Flirt composed the mini-lp “The cannon woman”, and Tullio de Piscopo for “Francesca is mine”. And then again the theatrical performances (the strange couple, first page), the Mia passion television broadcast until the film Scandal Secret (1988), of which the actress had also been a director.
“Monica – said Roberto Russo in the written testimony for the book La Dolce Vitti, edited by Stefano Stefanutto Rosa and created by Cinecittà Luce – is an artist on the way since the beginning of his career. He never stopped. It was natural that sooner or later he wrote his films and directing them ». And again: «In all her characters there is a little bit of her, her character, sometimes even of her way of thinking and acting. Monica has always worked on the scripts that sent her to sew the character on them ». The wedding had been celebrated on September 28, 2000, in the Capitol. After the death of Monica Vitti, Russo had once again chosen his confidentiality, defining himself definitively from public life and facing health problems.
The funeral will be held on Tuesday 23 September, at 10.30 am, in the church of the artists in Piazza del Popolo, on the day he would have turned 78.