Music, cinema and safe streets in memory of Francesco

Coming out of the Aula Magna of the Rectorate of Sapienza, the sensation is of having witnessed something special. Something important. The event organized by Corriere della Sera with the La Sapienza University of Rome to remember Francesco Valdiserri, the eighteen-year-old run over and killed on October 19 while walking on the sidewalk of via Cristoforo Colombo, was a leap towards their dreams for those who still have a future to be built and a profound reflection on the behavior that we must all adopt when we are on the road. The title was Cinema, music and the culture of road safety: studying and feeling good responsibly. Cinema and music, the great passions of Francesco, a first year student of Letters and Philosophy. Thanks to Corriere and Sapienza, a degree award for theses in these areas will be named after him.

Together

—

And cinema and music, in a packed room where the Minister of Sport Abodi and the secretary of the Democratic Party Letta were also present, spoke yesterday with great protagonists. Like the Oscar winner Gabriele Salvatores, who while chatting with Luca, Francesco’s father, said: “To those who are starting now I say that desire must be cultivated like a seedling, but it must be done together with others”. On stage and on video here is the look of friends. We talk about band T-shirts, from Joy Division to Pearl Jam: “T-shirts through which we can recognize ourselves – commented the writer Paolo Giordano – common references that remind us of the salvific value of culture and the importance of having access to the fruition of ‘art”. Then it was the turn of Niccolò Falsetti, the director of Marginsthe film that Francesco had gone to see that cursed evening: “I make films and play in a band because they are things that are done together with others. I fear that this hyper-connected society makes us feel much more alone”.

The battle

—

Together. The theme is recurring. And only together, through the dissemination of a collective road culture to start from very young, can the numbers of an infinite silent massacre be slowed down: in the first six months of 2022, one person died in road accidents every three hours. This is also what Francesco’s family wanted to talk about – his parents Luca and Paola Di Caro, journalists from Corriere, and his sister Daria – capable of “transforming pain into battle”, as the rector of Sapienza Antonella Polimeni underlined. And Corriere della Sera will carry out an awareness campaign on this battle, also monitoring what the institutions will do. Together. Like the Origami Smiles, Francesco’s band that concluded the evening. Most applauded of all. «Now my throat is resting in Heaven and my legs are gone with the wind», Francesco wrote in a song. Words that pierce, but which become a precious gift on such a special evening.