Fernando Cerchio Biography
Fernando Cerchio (1914 - 1974), born in Luserna S. Giovanni (in the province of Turin), after having attended the School of Fine Arts in 1939 we find him attending the Experimental Center of Cinematography in Rome, enrolled in the directing course. In the mid-1930s, Cerchio, like many other Italian students, participated in the Littoriali, artistic-cultural or sporting events organized by the National Fascist Party and promoted by the Ministry of Popular Culture. Fernando Cerchio participated in four editions, one for each academic year. In 1938 he began working on editing at the LUCE Institute which a few years later also commissioned documentaries from him. His first feature film was entitled La Buon Luck shot in 1943-44. Cerchio, after the war, intending to get off the bandwagon of the losers, in the year of the liberation of northern Italy from Nazi-fascism he shot a documentary film in Turin that winks at the Piedmontese Resistance. It's 1945 and it's Aldo says 26×1. It was also in Turin that Fernando Cerchio made his first film as director in 1948. It was the film adaptation of Cinderella, based on Rossini's opera. In the 1950s the activity continued with one film after another: The crossroads, The son of Lagardère, The tired bandolero, Lulù, Farewell my beautiful lady, The viscount of Bragelonne, The mysteries of Paris, The Venus of Chaeronea, Judith and Holofernes, The Tomb of the Kings, Nefertite Queen of the Nile, Totò against Maciste (1961), Totò and Cleopatra (1963), Totò against the Black Pirate (1964), The Red Sheik and With Iron and Fire, Spaghetti western For a Dollar of Glory (1966) and filmed the film adaptation of The Mark of Kriminal, dated 1967. In the same year Segretissimo was released, in the wake of the success of Fleming's 007 saga. As a director, Cerchio was most often hastily dismissed as an honest craftsman of the camera. He was part of that large family that in Rome was called "cinematographers", in colloquial Capitoline jargon the term indicated tout-court the colorful people of cinema, the multifaceted people of the Cinecittà that was. He died in Mentana, in the province of Rome, in 1974.
