Is with pride and great pleasure that the cultural association Iria dedicates a special prize for the Best Direction to the local director Sandro Bolchi, known from the audience for his adaptations for the TV screen of famous literary works.
SANDRO BOLCHI AS A DIRECTOR:
Born in Voghera the 18th of January 1924 in a family coming from Novi Ligure (Alessandria, Piemonte), he graduated in Literature and started his career as an actor working at the Guf theatre of Trieste. He continued with this activity even after moving to Bologna, where he began working as a journalist and deepen his knowledge of direction, founding, in 1948, a theatre called La Soffitta. Between his former successful works are L'imperatore Jones by O'Neil and the 'Avaro by Molière. From 1956 he’s been especially up to television, beginning with Frana allo scalo Nord by Ugo Betti, realizing with a solid tecnique and a great sense of the show a lot of comedies and representations of novels, productions based on a big commitment and that obtained a lot of success (I miserabili, I promessi sposi, Anna Karenina, I fratelli Karamàzov and I Demoni by Fedor Dostoevskij - script by the writer Diego Fabbri); Il crogiuolo, Il mulino del Po, first and second part, of whom he also worked for the reduction with the same author of the novel, Riccardo Bacchelli; La coscienza di Zeno, from Italo Svevo’s novel; Le mie prigioni, by Silvio Pellico, and Assunta Spina). This are the reasons why the audience will always remember him as the “televion shootings director”.
Sandro Bolchi also collaborated for a long time as a journalist with the Corriere della Sera, and directed more than one hundred operas, breaking in for several seasons La Scala (Milano) and the Arena (Verona) theatres. He has been a poliedric artist, that won for five years running the award as best director, fact that obliged the organizers to change the regulations, in order for the other participants to have more space.
Sandro Bolchi died in Rome the 2nd of August 2005. It was curious and made waves reading on the newspapers about the absence of RAI chiefs at his funeral, celebrated in the Chiesa degli Artisti in piazza del Popolo (Rome).
