For thirty summers the same sea and the same house above an inn. Patmos is a bit like Sveva Sagramola’s island.
«Two rooms above the sea, simple and bare, a refuge permeated by that essentiality that is good for the soul. If you arrive in a place where there is little, you free your mind, you can only be».
He has been presenting Geo for 26 years. She is considered the sweetest television host.
«It is a sweetness that hides a soul of steel. I’m a very strong person, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to maintain leadership for 26 years, every day. Without balance, an emotional and sensitive woman like me could not have overcome many vicissitudes of life. I’m very stubborn.’
Those who know her claim that Sagramola is authentic: on screen as in life.
«For 32 years I have been using video to communicate. I have a shy nature, the classic girl from the last school desk: staying in the background protects you and gives you a glimpse of the things that happen in the front row. She also helped Mixer school. Giovanni Minoli taught that TV is a team effort in which minds, skills, many personalities compete: from the authors to those who clean the studio. You don’t tire the audience unless you have an intrusive personality. Analytical therapy also helps keep narcissism at bay.
She is a bit Argentinian, even if she wasn’t born in South America.
«My mother lived there for twenty years, then she arrived in Italy and met my father, a cavalry officer. They got married, had four children. I am a boomer. They separated when I was 11: she started working as a photographer, experiencing her own human and feminine dimension in a complicated period for lonely and emancipated women».
She had dreams of becoming a nurse and a missionary.
«Yes, then the passion for philosophy, literature, anthropology took over. I had a fellow traveler who made me fall in love with Asia, especially India; so I opened up to a dimension of curiosity, knowledge and observation of people: mixing, entering homes, understanding cultures, staying in places. Nothing further from the comfort zone of today’s travel. The first time in Varanasi, on the bank of the Ganges, at dawn I found myself faced with immense poverty, with the most total desperation that we Westerners still find it hard to understand».
Then it was the turn of Africa, also in the company of Gabriele Muccino.
«I shot many reportages together with Amref Italia, starting well in advance to tell the relationship of the human being with the natural dimension. My thesis was in Kenya on the pastoral Turkana people. Talking to them, I understood that they were unwitting victims of a distant development model, they knew nothing about greenhouse gases, they didn’t understand me. Gabriele filmed the shorts for Mixer and the launches for Professione Natura. Together we have traveled the world from Tanzania to Patagonia, experiencing authentic epiphanies in pristine paradises. At Geo, thanks also to the excellent documentary filmmakers who work with us, we tackle the theme of our way of being in the world, the relationship between the economy, sustainable energy, food, agriculture».
How do you save the Earth from greenhouse gases?
“Certainly not with technology. This production model is hyper consumerist, we have reached a limit point which has created extreme social inequality. Growth must be combined with the social well-being of all and care. Before separate collection, you must not be predatory, bulimic in consumption: the less you have, the more you are free to express what you have inside».
Does she really behave like that at home?
«I use old clothes, in the dressing room the dresses have been there for fifteen years, I transform them with the costume designer, we turn them inside out. For me, I only buy classic items that last over time. I shop in four different places: today eating well is a job. For fruit and vegetables I go to the local market: I know everyone, we discuss prices. I read the ingredients on the label, I avoid refined things, I try to favor bulk. In this prevailing greenwashing, it takes them a moment to pass you off as one thing for another».
She married an Argentine whose last name is Dolce.
«Diego is the arrival at the threshold of 40 years in a moment in which I was convinced that I would no longer be able to build a stable life. I had no expectations, I felt absolutely free, everything came easy with him. I had met him when I was 15 and went to visit my Argentinian cousins. We spent a December together at the sea, but there wasn’t even a kiss. I saw him again in 1997 and thought: fascinating, but he lives far away. After the crisis of 2001 he moved to Madrid, the distance was reduced, my cousin Paulo acted as Cupid».
Your daughter is called Petra, the beach of Patmos overlooked by the inn.
“On the bay of this island there is a huge stone which is called that: a place of hermitage for the monks, I often paint it in my watercolours. Diego came up with the idea of strength and beauty that exists in stone. Combined with the surname Dolce, it is a poem».
He will be sixty in a year. What effect does it have on her?
“Round numbers always make an impression. I have chosen to age naturally, in a continuous dialogue with the changing body. I accept wrinkles and do not resort to aesthetic procedures. I took two punctures at forty. Diego said he’d do them too first, and then he’d leave me».
Would you host another TV show?
«Geo is my home, it is the son of public service, the result of the professionalism of many people, I present it with Emanuele Biggi, a biologist and photographer of great quality. If they offered me a beautiful, meaningful, valid program, I could test myself on something different».
Maybe to Mediaset? Many are leaving Rai.
«I have seen many directions and governments take turns on Rai, every time there are those who go up and down, go and stay. Rai is a cultural heritage of talents, it is always sad to lose them. The public service counts. Pluralism will remain and Rai will not become monochromatic».
Read the other interviews of the series «LE CAPITANE»
2023-09-01 05:52:58
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