INTERVIEW WITH CHARLOTTA SMEDS
Charlotta Smeds, Swedish. Since 1991 in Italy, in Rome. A lifetime. A job as a photographer and above all as a journalist. A book recently published in Sweden dedicated to Rome.
By now I’m more up to date on things in Italy rather than those in Sweden. Even if the fact that I work in Vatican Radio, on the Scandinavian programme, keeps me very up to date on what is happening in my country.
Luckily. The book is a gesture of love towards the city that I feel as my own. I feel very Roman.
I would like to be Anna Magnani. Falling in love with Rome was the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me together with my little girls
A year ago, just around this time, your wonderful photographic exhibition ‘Flick about’ dedicated to Subbuteo was inaugurated. Will you tell us bout it?
The idea was yours but unlike many other ideas of yours, I was immediately captured by this one. You allowed me to use a small part of your private collection of Subbuteo pieces, you were very jealous, you were afraid that I would do something disastrous. The purpose of an exhibition and of an event dedicated to Subbuteo was to talk about a type of football that is disappearing, that rather than a social phenomenon and a sport is a series of matches and championships and anxiety that gives results and performances. I mean football ones. I discovered Subbuteo in Italy; it was never as famous in Sweden as is England, Italy and other European countries. It is a great game. How many times I thought of breaking all your players. And those of your brother too.
What inspired your exhibition?
The great inspiration really came from the numerous games that I suffered in many years in Italy. Suffered in the real sense of the word. But I don’t really have to say this in the interview, true? However I used to laugh to see you boys (who in the meantime were becoming young men, men and then even fathers) play and really argue while you were playing endless Subbuteo matches. Infinite matches, tournaments, championships. And actually I was struck by the simplicity with which friendships were created just by playing Subbuteo. And then the idea that Subbuteo could transmit its healthy moral values to young people – I am thinking for example about the idea of Fair Play, I thought it was a very interesting challenge.
Why do you speak of a challenge?
Because I know Italian society and the world of the stadiums pretty well. Young people are pretty well abandoned by the State and schools, not to mention their families, and they find an easy outlet for their insecurity and need to rebel during football games. It is a pity however because this is healthy strength that could be put to much better use. These are young people that are fed up with the boring life that is offered them without much care. I think that Subbuteo represents a real chance for young people to understand that there are other worlds that are possible apart from the one they know. Subbuteo is getting together, it is friendship, it is loyalty. Subbuteo is for Ultras. Not the isolation of Playstation and television. That’s why the exhibition is a challenge.
Is the exhibition successful? I actually know but I would like to hear it from you.
Great. Fantastic. It’s a pity that the institutions invest so little in this kind of thing. They get lost in their chit-chat, decrees and special laws, it’s so much easier. But no one comes down onto the street, to the level of the problem. It is easy to pontificate from the comfortable armchairs of Parliaments and Federations. We need a figure like St Francis, someone who was not afraid to dirty his hands and talk to the wolf. I am thinking about St Philip Neri who was on the streets fighting hunger with his young people, or Don Bosco when he had the children of his first oratories playing football. There are no Councillors or Mayors in the Institutions that are really listening to the people. The only one who has really made a mark on me is the Mayor of Verona. He decided to bring the exhibition to his city. Someone who said that if they forbid the away matches, for the love of Verona he will still do them. Good for him! And the council of Turin also showed that it was very interested. Can I say it? Councillor Montabone. Perhaps because when he was young he played with the Toro (Torino football team) It isn’t a question of politics. It is a question of devotion to the social, not everyone has it. For example, very little comes from the football businesses, who are much more interested in how they can swell their budgets than in helping young people to grow.
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