The 2021 Day is dedicated to
Giancarlo Santelli e Franco Leita
Giancarlo Santelli
Mask-maker
Giancarlo Santelli, born in 1944, began his activity as a mask maker in the 1960s, combining it with that of actor and puppeteer. His artistic experiences intersect with names of the caliber of Macario, Cesare Zavattini, Giovanni Guareschi, Bernardo Bertolucci and the puppeteers Otello Sarzi and Giordano Ferrari. He begins to make masks and puppets for personal use, but his great mastery leads him to make this art his main activity. From the 1970s onwards, he made masks for artists such as Eduardo De Filippo, Gigi Proietti, Roberto de Simone, Glauco Mauri, Maurizio Scaparro, Franco Zeffirelli, Giorgio Albertazzi and Dario Fo. He also creates the masks for "Curculio", "Truculentus" and "Rudens" by Giancarlo Sammartano for the INDA of Syracuse.
Franco Leita
Mask-maker
Theater craftsman. He has developed a personal patrimony of techniques and creations in the field of masks, sets, elements of costumes, theatrical tricks. He works in wood, leather, paper mache and unconventional materials. The masks are made according to the traditional process, from the conception, to the sculpture of the shape, to the modeling of the leather. It boasts a heritage of about a hundred masks, from Tragedy to Ancient Commedia, neutral, larval, expressive modern full and half masks. He specializes in the mask of Commedia dell’Arte. Permanent collaborator of the Teatro del Frizzo/Santibriganti Teatro and of the Permanent Laboratory project on Commedia dell’Arte by Mauro Piombo.