Article by Sveva Keiko Abbatantuono

Translated by Luca Perrone

With Il protagonista (2025), Fabrizio Benvenuto delivers a debut that stands out for its connection to the Italian tradition and, at the same time, for its desire to find its own voice, guided by a bold drive to experiment with the audiovisual medium.

The daily life of Giancarlo Mangiapane (Pierluigi Gigante), a second-tier actor and the face of a few little-known commercials, revolves around a routine of failed auditions and characters that never come to life. But the trajectory of his career is suddenly interrupted by an unexpected offer: his application for a major role is accepted, officially making him the protagonist of a tap dancer’s biopic. However, instead of opening the doors to success, his extreme identification with the character’s turbulent nature engulfs him in a self-destructive and solitary labyrinth, where reality and fiction become irreversibly intertwined.

Benvenuto’s camera is an unstable, restless body, both mirror and interlocutor of the protagonist who is pushed to the brink of exhaustion. The relentless pacing of the mise-en-scène uses time jumps to generate disorientation, plunging the viewer into the actor’s mental labyrinth. The disintegration of his personal identity, the story’s fil rouge, finds redemption in the rebellious –and at times derisive– gaze of a direction which is unafraid to challenge the rules of formal composure in order to achieve its narrative aim.

The result is a sharp and biting inquiry, capable of combining technical cleverness with a critique of a film industry that offers no space to newcomers –a reality faced by many young artists and well known by the director himself. The open ending recalls the need to acknowledge the universal aspiration to become the “protagonists” of our own existence –both symbol and consequence of the all-consuming power of art, an innate vocation which is impossible to resist, despite the difficulties.

Giancarlo’s life implodes, his relationships fade into the background of a fictional landscape where nothing exists beyond his obsession. Benvenuto thus tells us that the very act of making art is a battlefield: playing the role of someone else means erasing himself for the protagonist, suppressing his own identity to the point of becoming lost within himself.