C.on With us … freewheelingof which in the second part of Sunday afternoon is the hostess, Francesca Fialdini grinds plays. It does so, making due proportions, even with Hunger for lovethe Rai 3 docu-reality on eating disorders (the fourth season airs every Monday in the late evening). “Hunger for love it is a program that has put me in crisis, it has changed me a lot and made me look for my knots to untie»Confesses Francesca. “This summer receive Jade’s letter (the girl who in the spring of 2022 had told about the disease in the program, and who then didn’t make it anymore, ed) was particularly strong. We all felt infinitely small. Personally, I wondered if I couldn’t do more ».
Francesca Fialdini: “Eating disorders do not spare anyone”
Have you done a self-analysis to find the knots to unravel?
Yes. I believe that analysis is something we should all do. I have done it in the past and continue to do so through specific reading and comparing myself with some people I have worked at Hunger for love. Leonardo Mendolicchio (scientific supervisor for Ballandi Arts of the docuseries, ed), for example, helps me to understand when the stories of the boys are my mirror.
How did your experience begin a Hunger for love?
The project was born on the proposal of Andrea Casadio, producer of Ballandi Arts, who for 2 years had collected material living in an immersive way in a therapeutic community for an Anglo-Saxon-style first-person story program. For the Italian public, however, it was necessary to make the project more delicate and they thought of a presenter who could act as a filter for the stories. So they came to me. I found it interesting, necessary and right. First of all, because I have always wanted to dedicate myself to young people and women and then because, in general, these eating disorders were relegated too superficially only to the world of fashion and costume while the panorama is much wider.
Francesca Fialdini in 2017. (Getty Images)
These days we talk about it in the field of gymnastics.
It is a phenomenon that spares no one. I am happy that the public opinion is ready to welcome these stories and also those related to mental illness that is registering levels never seen among young people. In this new season we have decided to broaden the field because the isolation from the pandemic has broken ties and the malaise has exploded with specific behaviors such as social appointments for fights, school dropout, self-harm.
A program like Hunger for love wouldn’t it deserve more attention and, perhaps, a prime time?
It is something that many ask of me. We would like it, but some images are very strong and you have to be ready to welcome them. In prime time they may be refused. Perhaps you could think of a daytime with a different formula that includes a talk because what you see raises questions.
“I don’t believe in justicialist journalism”
You take care of boys and girls, but even in adulthood there are incredible frailties: in these days there has been talk of the 24-year-old suicide after discovering that the virtual girlfriend was a 64-year-old. In turn, the man committed suicide after being harassed in a de service Hyenas. Have you thought about expanding the field?
So far we have made a choice of field because the boys, even at a journalistic level, have been relegated to Istat data. Except, then, to talk about them when they become news cases. Talking about young people also means identifying the moment in which these discomforts explode, investigating them in the bud means defusing them. This story, however, tells us a lot about how fragile relationships are, how much there is a need for illusions and non-judgmental relationships. Another story, then, is how the house was treated Hyenas.
What is your opinion?
There are so many ways to tell a story and you have to understand who you are dealing with. I don’t believe in executioner journalism. Journalism is useful or useless. In this case it was of no use: he could not bring the suicidal boy back to life or encourage a debate in court (the 64-year-old had already been sentenced to pay a fine, ed).
Are they forms of television bullying?
Let’s say they are useless forms of aggression.
“Enough with the obsession with appearance in the television story”
Not later than a few days ago you ended up in the crosshairs of Strip for your look.
Those are nonsense and they make me smile. But the attention to the body, to how you dress is an exasperation. We should also take a step forward in the television story, stop with this obsession with appearances. Many young people are already ahead of us adults.
Moving on to lighter things: in the description of your Instagram profile you define yourself as “apuana doc”. Are you very attached to your roots?
Yes. And the older I get, the more I want to go back to my roots, to this territory on the edge, a little looser closed between Liguria and Versilia. A land of peasants with a strong identity, an enclave. There is a deep imprint that is coming back overwhelmingly after the natural distancing that prompted me to seek my way. Growing up then I realized that I was missing many things: the link with the landscape, food and traditions and people.
Francesca Fialdini conducting “A free wheel”. (Handle)
“My favorite guest is the one who has put his unlucky life back on track”
Speaking of people: who is your guest of choice a With us … freewheeling?
That a little stortignaccolo, who managed to turn the wheel of a loser life in the right direction. What he did on his own without receiving favoritism, the one against the tide who gave a damn about the judgment of others or who went through a process of liberation alone. I would like to meet Roberto Benigni one day, but only because I believe he has enough to teach everyone.
Would you be eligible as a guest of yourself?
No, because there is nothing I have done to turn the wheel for others. So far I have run it for me.
“I volunteer in centers for eating disorders”
But you are Knight of the Republic.
It doesn’t mean anything. Even if with my work I have the opportunity to tell very delicate stories and make them play in the houses of others, it is not enough. There will come a time when I will understand what to do to make myself truly useful and available. At the moment I work as a volunteer with Mendolicchio in his centers for eating disorders.
In an interview with Christian family you declared that you were about to take your vows. When did it happen?
They are exaggerations of the titles. I have told the discovery of faith as a form of falling in love that changes life. The vote was more a fantasy than anything else.
Francesca Fialdini and Paolo Conticini at the presentation of the “Zecchino d’Oro” 2021. (Getty Images)
Your relationship with the little ones is not a fantasy: your next engagements are with the Zecchino d’oro and the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.
Fantastic. I treat them as adults, I like them to take me apart, to take away my safety. Theirs is a wise voice, without filters and they ask interesting questions.
What is the most interesting one you received?
«But are you like this now because you are here with us or are you always like this?». Behind such a question there is a world: that of masks which is a theme of our time and to which my work obliges. As an entertainer, I always have to wear a smile, regardless of my moods. On social media, however, it’s worse: people switcha from one personality to another depending on the nickname.
“I don’t understand influencer moms who use their children to sell products”
What relationship do you have with social networks?
I look at them with suspicion. I use Instagram for work, lately I almost feel rejection. Today, people on social media count for the number of followers. This continuous race for aesthetics, to show the body I find it harmful, violent, aggressive. If there is one thing that hurts me more than others, it is to see influencer moms use their children to sell products, alternating photos of them in lingerie with those of children. There should be regulation.
The news spread on the web that you participated in Miss Italy. Is it also one of the first internet searches involving you with husband, children and illness?
I don’t explain it, it’s paradoxical. She is a fake like her husband and children. For the disease I can think of when I had Covid and was replaced in With us … freewheeling by a very good Nek. He is my alter ego, we share a certain way of feeling things and we often confront each other. I hope someday to be able to work with him.
About your private life, as evidenced by the unfinished searches on the web, very little is known. How does a private person like you make others open up in interviews?
Leaving others free to do so. I have given myself a rule: I ask questions as far as I feel I can go. I never investigate private life unless the guest brings up the subject. I am very vintage: I believe that intimate life must be protected and protected to give it value.
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