President – CRISTINA DONADIO
A Neapolitan actress, author and director, Cristina Donadio has a very long career that began in the theatre in the 1970s, then moved on to the cinema, but achieved true fame thanks to the role of the camorrist Scianel in the cult Italian series Gomorra.
Beginnings
Born in Naples in 1960, Cristina Donadio first took the stage alongside the great Nino Taranto in 1977. In the years to come, she would also work alongside other big names in Neapolitan acting such as Eduardo De Filippo and Aldo Giuffrè. He worked closely with other high-profile theatre personalities such as Mico Galdieri, Aroldo Tieri, Edmo Fenoglio and the excellent Gianni Agus.
The film debut
As early as 1978, she made her film debut in Werner Schroeter’s film Nel Regno di Napoli, alongside Dino Mele and Ida Di Benedetto. To her, goes the role of the young Vittoria. In the 1980s, she was directed by Pasquale Squitieri in Razza selvaggia, then passed under the watchful eye of the great Liliana Cavani in La pelle (1981) and in front of the lens of Vittorio Caprioli for Stangata napoletana (1982).
Happy Encounters
Highly appreciated by Pappi Corsicato, who strongly wanted her in some of his most famous productions of the 1990s and 2000s (Libera, I buchi neri, I vesuviani, Chimera and in the television series Vivi e lascia vivere), she was also often directed by Pasquale Marrazzo (Malemare, Asuddelsole) and Edoardo De Angelis (Perez and the splendid Il vizio della speranza), who will entrust her with strong female characters, often defeated by life and disillusioned by any form or possibility of redemption. Meanwhile, her meeting with Enzo Moscato and the Teatro di Frontiera marked a crucial change in her activity as a theatre actress, leading her to hone resources and skills that would make her the great and significant performer she is today.
Success
After a good number of television experiences with dramas and miniseries, she joined the cast of Gomorra – La serie, which brought her to definitive national fame. A leading role that Donadio brings home with extreme care, without the fear of appearing grotesque in front of the viewers’ eyes. The lit cigarette always between her fingers, the hoarse voice, the blond hair and a face with soft but broad contours mark a character who makes Italian television history. Rarely has such an incisive protagonist-antagonist been seen on our television screens.
The opening to comedy
Meanwhile, it is the lightness of Stefano Incerti and his La parrucchiera that gives her the best film role she has had so far. Although the film does not stand out for its originality, Donadio is excellent and lively in this neo-feminist Neapolitan-style film, in which she enters powerfully into the scene with the character of Patrizia, at times overshadowing equally good actors such as Pina Turco, Stefania Zambrano, the always perfect Massimiliano Gallo and Arturo Muselli.
The hairdresser opened the door to comedy, which she had previously frequented much less, and allowed her to be directed by Vincenzo Salemme in Con tutto il cuore. Although that disturbing atmosphere of menace that she is able to create with her mere appearance, a legacy left to her by Scianel, never seems to leave her, not even when, in a very brief but terrible appearance, she pierces the screen of the Italian horror film A Classic Horror Story by Roberto De Feo and Paolo Strippoli. In 2022, she returned to drama with Francesco Patierno’s The Cure, in a reinterpretation of Camus’ The Plague.
Director and author Theatrically, she successfully ventures as a director and author of a very special type of ‘figure theatre’. She has staged many plays: ‘…E allora mi hanno rinchiusa…’; ‘Piccola suite in blu minore’; ‘Il Dolore della guerra’; ‘Res-Emotion’; ‘Io, Clitemnestra, il verdetto’; ‘Città di mare con sirene’; ‘Transformation’; ‘Sexton’; and ‘…È tutto qui e nulla è ancora compiuto…’.