Souvenir d'Italie

Lelio Luttazzi was one of the most emblematic figures of a time when music, theater, film and television spoke the same language, one marked by superb songwriting and elegance. Souvenir d’Italie is the story of this great artist, whose life and career were intertwined with our recent history. It also looks at a moment in his life that others haven’t, perhaps because Luttazzi – this “healthy carrier of tuxedos”, as Enrico Vaime called him – was very reserved.

Swing was his thing. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, Luttazzi wrote songs like Legata a uno scoglio, Rabarbaro Blues, Vecchia America (for the Cetra Quartet), Una zebra a pois (for Mina), El can de Trieste (in the Triestine dialect), and Souvenir d’Italie, perhaps his best-known hit: it even crossed the pond and was recorded by Perry Como. As well as a composer, pianist and singer of his own songs, Luttazzi was an orchestra conductor, actor (L’avventura by Antonioni, Weekend, Italian-Style by Risi), and a remarkable radio and television host. From Hit Parade and Studio Uno to Doppia coppia, Lelio Luttazzi was one of the most versatile and debonair showmen on air, to the tuxedo born, with a soul steeped in jazz and a well-honed sense of humor. After his films about Ezio Bosso, Pino Daniele, and Paolo Conte, Verdelli reconstructs Luttazzi’s career and the miscarriage of justice that ended it in 1970 (and inspired Nanni Loy’s film Why?). Above all, the film conveys the artist’s charm and intelligence as he reinvented Italian music and entertainment.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT Lelio Luttazzi is a name everyone knows, but almost exclusively for only one of his particular talents. On the one hundredth anniversary of his birth,
this documentary aims to round out our understanding of this original artist’s extraordinary career.
Luttazzi’s artistic output ranges freely across music and film to cabaret and even literature, thus standing as a cross-section of our recent past. In order to paint as complete a portrait as possible of Luttazzi the artist and Luttazzi the man, we dug deep into the stories told by his wife and friends and the photos, programs, and the enormous catalogue of his published music, unearthing all sorts of tidbits that are little known.