ZAGNI100
100th Anniversary of the Italian-Jewish Film Director and Writer Giancarlo Ghiddon Zagni
In 2026, La Dante Gerusalemme will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the filmmaker and writer Giancarlo Ghiddon Zagni with a special and extensive tribute project!
Giancarlo Ghiddon Zagni was an Italian director, screenwriter, journalist, multidisciplinary intellectual, teacher, entrepreneur, author, translator and producer.
Born in Bologna on November 4, 1926, Zagni studied medicine at the University of Bologna. He then worked as a journalist for "L'avvenire d'Italia" and other newspapers and magazines.
.jpg)
Teatro Comunale di Bologna
In Theater and Cinema
Zagni's directorial debut took place in 1949–1950 at the Soffitta Theatre in Bologna and at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna with Antonio Grafi's "The Passengers".
From 1951 he worked in the theatre as assistant director to Luchino Visconti on the productions of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman", Carlo Goldoni's "La locandiera", Anton Chekhov's "Three Sisters", Euripides' "Medea", and Diego Fabbri's "The Temptress". Zagni also worked with Visconti in the film industry as assistant director on the 1954 period drama "Senso". There, on the set, the actress Alida Valli, then a world-famous star, fell in love with him, and became his partner in life and work for a decade and a half.
In 1954 Zagni broke off his collaboration with Visconti, left Italy and in 1955 studied for a year at Lee Strasberg's acting studio in New York.
In 1956 Zagni moved to Mexico, worked with Carlos Fuentes and directed several plays for Jana Kleinborg.
That same year he was behind the transition of Alida Valle from cinema to theatre in Italian adaptations of well-known Broadway plays: "Rossmerholm" by Henrik Ibsen, "The Innocents" by William Archibald based on Henry James, and "Man, Beast and Virtue" by Luigi Pirandello.
Research, writing and production: Zohar Luciano Levron
Giancarlo Zagni and Alida Valle
Image from the film "The Beauty of Hippolyta" starring Gina Lollobrigida and Enrico Maria Salerno, 1961. In the center of the image: singer Milva
After directing about fifty plays in the theater, Zagni made his debut as a film director and screenwriter. In 1961, he returned to Italy and adapted a novel by Elio Bartolini into the film "La bellezza di Ippolita" ("The Beauty of Hippolyta").
The film, starring Gina Lollobrigida and Enrico Maria Salerno, represented Italy at the 12th Berlin International Film Festival in 1962.
In 1963, he directed a short film in Spanish in Mexico, "A la salida" ("At the Exit"), based on the one-act play "All'uscita" by the Sicilian writer Luigi Pirandello, whom Zagni admired. Zagni himself adapted the play into a screenplay, and it starred Alida Valle, Luis Aragon and Augusto Bendico.
In 1965 Zagni was an artistic partner in the period film "La Mandragola" based on a play by Niccolò Machiavelli. The film was nominated for an Oscar in the category of costume design.
In the same year he directed the third and final episode of the film called "Umorismo in nero" (English titled "Death Travels Too Much"). The episode, called "La cornacchia" ("The Crow") and lasting about half an hour, stars Alida Valli and Folco Lulli.
In 1966 Zagni won the "Leone di San Marco Plate" award at the Venice Film Festival with the children's comedy film "Testadirapa" (released as "Blockhead" outside Italy), which starred Folco Lulli and the singer Gigliola Cinquetti.
In 1967, he responded to Terence Young's call to assist him in directing "L'avventuriero" ("The Rover"). The film starred Anthony Quinn and Rita Hayworth.
In 1968, Zagni co-wrote the script for the spaghetti western Execution with director Domenico Paololo.
That same year, Zagni also co-directed with Christian Marquand on his film "Candy" (Italian: Candy e il suo pazzo mondo). The film starred Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, John Huston, Ringo Starr, John Astin, Elsa Martinelli, Charles Aznavour, Umberto Orsini and Enrico Maria Salerno who starred in Zagni's first film, "La bellezza di Ippolita".
.jpg)
After "Candy" he retired from film directing but not from cinema: in the following years Zagni began a new career as a producer and distributor, in his role as director of the Italnoleggio company.
In the 1970s, Zagni was president of the Italian Filmmakers Association for UNICEF. His collaboration with Gian Carlo Menotti, Giorgio Sterler, Terence Young and Arnoldo Farina resulted in a 1979 animated television film for UNICEF called "Ten to Survive", which deals with the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. The film, which won an Academy Award in 1980, includes original compositions by composers Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone.
As part of his work for UNICEF, Zagni directed an Italian version of Avraham Shlonsky's play "Otz Li Gotz Li" in Rome in 1982, which was very successful and was performed throughout Italy. His wife, the Israeli actress Dalia Lahav, also starred in the play.
Directing in the Music Industry
In 1996, at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome, he directed a video clip for the song by Italian singer Antonello Venditti "Parla come baci" ("Speak like you kiss").
The clip, which is also a tribute to Cinecittà and cinema, features Zagni's students in the theater courses he taught in Monterotondo near Rome.
Zagni dedicated the last decades of his life to intensive activity in collaboration with non-profit organizations, producing outdoor theatrical performances that also included original texts and his translations of plays by Euripides, Plautus, and Shakespeare. This was in addition to returning to teaching and a new and additional career - as a writer.
Broadcast Directing
In 2001, Zagni produced and hosted an internet broadcast project called "interpassaggi", from the "Enzimi" festival in Rome.
In 2004, a short documentary was produced about this groundbreaking project, which shines a spotlight on Zagni's work as a director and producer, his perspective and perception of the ever-evolving world of media, and his skills as a presenter.
Filmography
1954 Senso assistant director Luchino Visconti
1961 La bellezza di Ippolita director and co-screenwriter (writer Elio Bartolini)
1963 A la salida director and screenwriter
1965 La Mandragola artistic collaboration for director Alberto Lattuada
1965 La Cornacchia director and screenwriter
1966 Testadirapa director and co-screenwriter (writer Fausto Tozzi)
1967 L'avventuriero assistant director Terence Young
1968 Execution co-screenwriter
1968 Candy co-director Christian Marquand
1979 Ten to Survive (TV) ideazation and production with Arnoldo Farina
1996 Festival actor (directed by Pupi Avati)
.jpg)
Academia and Teaching
While in Mexico in the late 1950s, he founded, together with Gonzalez Casanova, the School of Cinema (ENAC) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and taught there for three years.
Years later, he returned to teaching and directed the Multimedia Theater Laboratory in Monterotondo near Rome (from 1994 to 2001), where he led students in eight comprehensive and innovative projects in which they experimented with everything from writing, directing, rehearsals, and staging the show.
Plays and Translations
Zagni wrote several plays, including "Charles the Great and Leo III" (a free theatrical reenactment in three acts of the historical encounter at Mantegna. Carlo Magno e Leone III) and scripts such as "Tango" and "Libertino in Fuga" (Da Ponte).
He also translated Plautus's "Amphathreon", Euripides' "Alcestis" and Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" into Italian.
Books
In 2000, his book "Fire of the Sun - A Free Interpretation of the Life and Death of Giordano Bruno" (Il Fuoco del Sole. Libera interpretazione della vita e morte di Giordano Bruno) was published.
In 2007, he published his book "The Jerusalem Syndrome" (La Sindrome di Gerusalemme), a novel about a photojournalist who arrives in Jerusalem. This book, which Zagni also signed under his Hebrew name - Ghiddon, contains references to the Italian poet Dante Alighieri.
In 2025, his book "Journey with the Devil: A Three-Part Entertainment in G Major" (Viaggio con il Diavolo. Divertimento a tre in Sol Maggiore) was published, a novel that reveals the intellectual side of the composer Mozart, mainly around the writing of the operas "The Marriage of Figaro", "So They Do" and "Don Giovanni".
La Sindrome di Gerusalemme, 2007
Il Fuoco del Sole, 2000
Viaggio con il Diavolo. 2025
Event in honor of the publication of the book "The Jerusalem Syndrome", 2007:
Part 1
Part 2
Public Roles
Zagni was the executive director of Italnoleggio, vice president of the LUCE Institute and a member of the board of the Ente Cinema S.p.A. In these frameworks he financed, produced and distributed over 150 films, including: Roma (by Fellini), Desert of the Tartars, The Night Porter, The Tree of Wooden Clogs, Ginger and Fred, Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
In the 1970s he was president of the Italian Cinema Association for UNICEF, initiated the film "Ten to Survive" for the organization, and in 1986 he directed the 40th anniversary celebrations of UNICEF at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
From 2003 to 2006 he served as an advisor to the Visconti Foundation for the centenary of the birth of director Luchino Visconti, with whom he worked in the 1950s.
Personal Life
His first wife was the actress Elida Valli. The couple separated without children after more than a decade and a half. His second wife was the Israeli actress Dalia Lahav. Zagni converted to Judaism and the couple had two children – Gabriel, a multidisciplinary artist who worked alongside singer Lucio Dalla, and Daniel, who was a musician and died in 2012, at the age of 37, from a rare cancer. Less than a year later, on March 21, 2013, Giancarlo Zagni died in Rome, at the age of 86, and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Flaminio, Rome.
Links
News articles mentioning Giancarlo Zagni, LUCE archive
A blog by Giancarlo Gideon Zagni written around the publication of the book "Jerusalem Syndrome"
An article about an evening held in honor of the publication of his book "Journey with the Devil"
Giancarlo Zagni, on the IMDb movie database
Giancarlo Zagni, in the film database MYmovies.it, Mo-Net Srl
Giancarlo Zagni, in the FilmTv.it database (in Italian)
Giancarlo Zagni, in the database L'Unità – Archivio Fotografico