ISSUE NO.05: FACES IN FOCUS

The multifaceted actress, model, and author Alice Pagani grew up in Piattoni, in the province of Ascoli Piceno. 2018 was her breakthrough year, with Pagani gaining international recognition for her roles in the Netflix drama Baby and the film Loro. Ever-restless creatively, in 2021 she published her debut novel, Ophelia. She continues dedicate herself to evolving her craft, graduating from the London School of Dramatic Art with an Advanced Diploma in 2023. “I enter emotional spaces and try to make them feel real,” Alice says of her approach. “I tell stories through characters, and I really enjoy listening as an actress. It’s part of my process.”

Born and raised on the outskirts of Venice, Carolina Sala was noticed by an agent while performing in a play the summer before fifth grade. In the years succeeding this early discovery, she’s moved between mainstream TV and arthouse cinema — a rising star representing a new age in Italian entertainment. Reflecting on her craft now, she says, “Acting is a privilege. To represent what other people have thought and done, and to reach a common ground between many parts. Isn’t that just beautiful?”

Born in Djibouti to Ethiopian parents, Tezeta Abraham arrived in Rome with her mother aged five. It wasn’t long before she was attending one of the city’s convent boarding schools, an experience she’s written about in her recent autobiography. Her break into fashion came after being spotted at a hairdresser’s shop in Termini Station. A few years later, acting followed, sparked by a casting director’s call-out for performers who spoke with a Roman dialect. “Before I thought acting was about lying. But when I started studying at acting school, I realized it’s all about truth.”

Born in Lecce, a sandstone, Baroque haven at the heel of the Italian peninsula, and raised in Bologna, actress Coco Rebecca Edogamhe split her childhood between Italy and Nigeria. Now based in Rome, she finds beauty in her surroundings, shaping her idea of the ‘Roman woman’: someone who is confident (and very interested in art). Her big break came as the titular Summer in Netflix’s coming-of-age drama, Summertime. In her free time, she enjoys reading, particularly myths. “I’m a fan of epic stories about ancient Rome.”

Sicilian actress Anita Pomario got her start in acting as a student of the performing arts theater G.o.D.o.T. in Ragusa. From there, she headed to the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, one of the most prestigious theater schools in the world. A stint off-Broadway came after (in a Jazz Age adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, no less), followed by the role of Rosa Balistreri, a legend of Sicilian folk music, in 2024’s The Sicilian Storyteller. The Italian native views the magnificence of Rome as its own entity: “When I think of Rome, it’s like a piece of art itself.”

Starting at Rome’s Accademia di Belle Arti, conceptual artist Elisabetta Benassi has incorporated installation, sculpture, photography, video, and performance into her practice since the early ’90s, returning always to the central questions: Where have we come from and where are we going? Her presentations have been exhibited all around the world, including three separate installations at the Venice Biennale. “Rome is a place of constant inspiration,” she says of her hometown. “It reminds us that history is something we must confront. In a world where everything seems possible, this relationship with history is something no artist can forget.”

A multi-talent across TV, film, and theater, the big breakthrough for actress Marta Gastini came starring opposite Anthony Hopkins, no less, in the 2011 film The Rite. Born and raised in Alessandria, the roles she chooses veer toward the darker, the more cerebral. It’s no surprise that one of her favorite films is the neorealist Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio De Sica, set in the city after World War II: “It’s a must-watch if you want to see a more modern Rome.”

Born in Rome, actress and model Alice Maselli first made her screen debut in 2017 as Agnese, the daughter of Antonio Albanese in the hit comedy Like a Cat on a Highway. She has since leaned into comedic roles. A common misconception about Rome? “That it’s only chaos and traffic,” she says. “That’s partly true, but, at the same time, the city hides many intimate places that really give life to the people who live there. We Romans know them very well.”

Musician and actor Arianna Di Claudio studied piano at a music school in Besozzo and the Liceo Musicale in Varese, two picturesque towns in the north of Italy, before graduating from a musical theatre school in Milan. When she’s in Rome, she draws inspiration from the atmosphere: “Fulfill yourself with all the beauty here. Even when you’re having a bad day and you take a walk around, it’s not about you anymore, it’s about Rome.”

A novelist, essayist, journalist, and screenwriter, Barbara Alberti arrived in Rome in the ‘50s, becoming a fixture of the city’s literary scene over the years. Her writing is eclectic and often provocative, and has centered on dismantling stereotypical representations of women and exploring desire, faith, rebellion and identity through irony and satire. “I didn’t decide,” she says of her path, “writing decided.”

Laura Cabezas, who currently serves as the Rome Communications Officer at the American Academy in Rome, believes that it is precisely through communication, and learning to make noise, that change can happen. “I hope that we all learn that making noise makes an impact, and that’s what we should be doing.”

Growing up in Pozzuoli, near Naples, Ludovica Nasti first turned to acting after appearing in catalogs as a model. In 2018, she made her screen debut as young Lila in My Brilliant Friend, the television adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s trilogy of novels, a role that won her Best New Actress at the Globo d’Oro. In 2024, she starred in the comedy-drama The Story of Frank and Nina, which premiered at the 81st Venice Film Festival. “I chose this profession out of passion, out of a love that began by chance,” she says. “And now, well, I simply can’t do without it.”

The multimedia artist Lulù Nuti, born and raised in Rome, works across sculpture and installation. Her practice interrogates power and structures in our contemporary world head on, through industrial materials like concrete, stone, and iron. “Here in Rome I have a studio in Centocelle,” she says. “I chose to return to live in Rome after ten years in Paris because it’s the city where I find the most collaborators for the realization of my sculptures, and artisans who have an ancestral knowledge of materials.”

A Rome native, the photographer, artist, and curator Valerie Giampietro feels especially connected to the city. “Rome is a city where you can really find inspiration everywhere.” For nearly a decade, she has co-run the artist space Studioli located by the Tevere river, inviting artists to engage with, and reinterpret, the space. Her most recent exhibition, This has to do with me, at the Ermes Ermes gallery in Rome, examines the proximity between fashion and death through photography.