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Radio Bulgaria among the Bulgarians in Italy

Italian actor of Bulgarian origin Alessandro Massacci will appear in Bulgarian TV series

Alessandro Massacci is proud of his Bulgarian roots
Photo: Veneta Nikolova

He was born in Italy 26 years ago. His mother is Bulgarian, his father Italian, and he is proud to be the bearer of two cultures and two languages. He admits that he feels at home in Sofia. And his great love is cinema. Alessandro Massacci decided to become an actor when he was only 8 years old. As a child, he was painfully diffident and one day his mother forcibly took him to an acting class to familiarize himself with children's work. "Suddenly something dawned on me, I asked to go on stage and since then I haven't left it," Alessandro recalls.

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The young actor already has behind him a series of big and small roles in various productions. And the Bulgarian audience will be able to see him very soon in the new series of the Bulgarian National Television Everything For My Son with the participation of a whole constellation of favourite Bulgarian actors, including Dimitar Rachkov, Iriney Konstantinov, Hristina Apostolova and others. 

Scene from the series Everything For My Son

And although he has a supporting role, Alessandro admits that he got great satisfaction from his work with the Bulgarian team. The 12-episode production is about a single father raising his son alone and struggling with life's challenges, we learn from Alessandro. And more:

"The film will be broadcast in April, and we filmed it this summer. It was an interesting project. I played an Italian who arrives in Bulgaria and we fight over an inheritance. The series is supposed to be a comedy. My character speaks all the time in Italian. This role allowed me to follow how the film industry works in Bulgaria, it is quite different from here in Italy. Now I am starting to shoot another series in Rome. It is Italian and it is called Leonardo Wanted. It is dedicated to the life of Leonardo da Vinci. I will impersonate his student and assistant Salai. We are shooting the teaser and in April the actual filming will start," says Alessandro in fluent Bulgarian.

The young actor is fond of his Bulgarian roots, so he often travels to Bulgaria to see his friends and relatives. Like most children from mixed marriages, at home he communicates in Bulgarian with his mother and in Italian with his father. But that is not enough. Alessandro decides to improve his mother tongue and goes to Sunday school, albeit as a student. For two years, the young man attended the Bulgarian school "Asen and Ilia Peikovi" in Rome. And he admits that the main "stumbling block" was learning the Cyrillic alphabet.


"The idea was to learn to write and read better in Bulgarian and to learn a little more about Bulgarian history and culture. The curious thing was that this coincided at one point with my studies at the university, i.e. in the morning I went to lectures, then on Sundays I attended the Bulgarian Sunday school. In fact, I have never lived in Bulgaria and I learned to speak Bulgarian thanks to my grandmother and my mother."

Alessandro claims that in the last 5-6 years he has become even closer to Bulgaria through his Bulgarian girlfriend and the filming of the series. He hopes to participate in a Bulgarian production again. And the fact that he is the bearer of two cultures makes him more profound and convincing as an actor, Alessandro believes.

"It helps because you have a different way of thinking, and I see two cultures. When you interpret a given role, you give everything from your cultural background and you are more open-minded. The more languages you speak, the more cultures you know. This gives life to your characters. I feel my Bulgarian essence. It is expressed with the special warmth that Bulgarians have. These are people who will do everything possible to help you. And I feel this strongly in myself. If a friend of mine or a person needs something, I will be there, by his side," says Alessandro Massacci in conclusion.


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Photos: Veneta Nikolova, Elena Karkalanova, archive, BNT

Video: Veneta Nikolova



Published by Rositsa Petkova



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