“I’ve never been so good at talking about myself, maybe that’s also why I started writing songs”. It is one of the first reflections we hear from the winning singer-songwriter of two San Remo (in 2019 with ‘Soldi’, and, paired with Blanco, in 2022 with ‘Broglie’) in ‘Mahmood’, the docufilm / portrait of Giorgio Testi, who makes its debut at the Rome Film Festival in Alice nella città and then arrives in theaters in an event release from 17 to 19 October with Nexo and from 15 November on Prime video. A journey that on the leitmotif of Mahmood’s Italian and European tour, from the Bataclan in Paris to the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London or the Sala but in Madrid, passing through Alcatraz in Milan or Eurovision, launches glances, also using the ‘2d animation, family films, testimonies of friends, family and colleagues, from Carmen Consoli to Blanco and Dardust, on the human, personal (without touching the sentimental sphere), and artistic path of Alessandro Mahmoud, born in 1992. In particular, there he focuses on the importance of the figure of his mother Anna, a Sardinian from Orosei, a fixed point in his life (“he always showed himself as a happy child, I later discovered that he expressed his discomfort in songs”, he explains); the complicated relationship with his Egyptian father Ahmed (also told in one of his iconic songs, ‘Money’), the frailties, the professional disappointments (such as the elimination of X factor in 2012), difficult moments, even recent ones, like his house destroyed in the fire of the Torre dei Moro in Milan in 2021; the ability to seize new opportunities and the relationship with success, “which has not changed him – says a friend of him – on the contrary, has made him more empathetic”. When you decide “to make a docufilm about your life and your path you have to be sincere and also tell things a little more uncomfortable, as I did with respect to the relationship with my father – explains Mahmood at the press conference -. It turned out to be a very long journey. also useful for me. Sometimes in order not to think about my problems I try to blur the memories of the past. The documentary in this sense was therapeutic, it helped me to put points on certain moments … others “, he comments with a smile. The singer-songwriter wanted the docuflm (produced by Red Carpet, a company of the ILBE Group, in collaboration with Prime Video) to be “the antithesis of a celebration, of a career award – he adds -. Also because seeing me pass through the pine forest in Sardinia, where I cook sausages together with my family (particularly numerous among uncles and cousins), the rehearsal in the dressing rooms in London does not correspond to the portrait of a superstar who breaks everything. I did not want it to be a pompous tale, but that the more human side was in relief of this path, the transformation that music brings in me. I wanted to show how I really am “. The musician, in his exploration of the other arts, last year also published a graphic novel, Ghettolimpo. On the paths of the soul (Mondadori): “I think it is becoming more and more reductive to talk about barriers between music, cinema, literature, fashion …. I think everything is linkable and connectable. Thanks to this documentary I was able to explain sides and aspects of my character that with music are not always so clear by instinct “. Mahmood would like the docufilm to also communicate that there are not always loopholes “in the way to get to a goal and that in any case we should not stop in front of the doors in the face”.
