My name is nobody

My name is nobody

A documentary about the search for fame: How important is fame for us? What if your two classmates become famous all over the world, and you don’t?

In a search for a classmate of film director Sergio Leone and film composer Ennio Morricone in Rome, this film explores the magical aura of fame. A film about fame and the glimmer of living in the shadows.

Somewhere in a small restaurant in Rome, a photograph hangs on the wall. It’s an old, yellowed class photo which evokes nostalgia for bygone times. A large group of cute boys in school uniform look straight at the camera lens. Thousands of these photographs have been taken, but this one is special.

Two of these boys would become very famous later: Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone. They were classmates. The photograph has become famous because of this, as well. In every film about Sergio Leone, in every interview with Ennio Morricone, this photograph is shown. And the two little faces are higlighted. Look: there is little Sergio, and there, look: little Ennio.

But they don’t stand exactly next to each other; there is someone in between them. If you ask “and who is that?”, people are surprised: “That boy? No, we don’t know, that boy isn’t famous, he’s nobody.”

This film is about with this boy, who has spent his whole life standing between two celebrities on the photograph.

I don’t know anything more about this boy than his name, Grisanti. There my search begins. It first brings me to the restaurant where the photograph hangs. Here, his image has hung in obscurity for a lifetime, and here I pull him from the shadows.

An unknown boy in the picture between two world famous artists. Who is this boy? What became of him and how has he been marked by the place between two celebrities? This leads us through Rome: the Rome of the past and the Rome of the present, which itself is encountering problems with fame.

Slowly we get closer to the heart of the mystery we’re exploring. It’s an exciting and emotional adventure exploring how important fame is for us and what happens to you when your two classmates become world famous, and you don’t.