Italo Zingarelli: Freedom
It was 1979, and I was barely 5 years old. Some memories are impressed on my mind with a sort of solarized texture, like in the photographs of the period, full of icons and myths.
My father Franco and mother Luciana were like crazy pinballs, touring the world: America, France and Germany were the sides against which they continuously bumped and Italy’s capital the hole to which they always returned. I was really young, but I remember very well the period in which my father worked on this little jewel, produced and shot with great love and poetry by Mr. Zingarelli. I remember Italo, a large guy who made an enormous impression on me: tall, with an imposing frame and often wearing a big beard that made him both tender and menacing, like an Italian version of Santa Claus. We owe a lot to this man who gave so much to Italian cinema, sensibly enriching our artistic fortune, sometimes, as in this case, with great irony and poetry.
Shot in Africa in the late ’70s, Io sto con gli ippopotami (aka I’m for the Hippopotamus), is a movie that in my imagination is just like Italo: humorously menacing and bulky, protective, awesome and sweet, a description that also fits the mascot of this delicious film, the hippopotamus. In this movie we feel the presence of its producer/director’s poetry, often handed down with great passion and cheerfulness through his cinema. It’s a simple message of love for nature, respect for the weaker and the duty to intervene when they are subjected to abuse. Everything is presented with disarming simplicity, as powerful as it is beautiful. You must confess that you were moved when Terence Hill, toward the end of the movie, delights himself with his friend-of-a-thousand- adventures Bud Spencer by watching the flight of the animals from Mr. Ormond’s boat to the wonderful notes of “Freedom,” where my father’s harmonica together with the melody infuses the scene with an almost maternal sweetness.
Well, we are all in debt to this big guy for his kind message and the clean, sparkling, soft and amusing sincerity that dwells there, among the lines of his cinema, apparently devoted to simple entertainment but so wonderfully deep and full of feeling.
Heartiest thanks, Italo.

Daniele De Gemini

This album, dedicated to the memory of Italo Zingarelli, is released on a 180 grams colored vinyl, mastering by Enrico De Gemini, graphic layout by Daniele De Gemini.