Luca Guadagnino
Guadagnino and Ingeborga Dapkunaite, 2010 – Photo Credit: Insidefoto / PR Photos
Place of Birth: Palermo, Sicily, Italy
Date of Birth: 10 August, 1971
Ethnicity:
*father – Italian/Sicilian
*mother – Algerian
Luca Guadagnino is an Italian film director, producer, and screenwriter. He has directed the films The Protagonists, which he wrote; Melissa P., I Am Love, both of which he co-wrote; A Bigger Splash, Call Me by Your Name, Suspiria (2018), Bones and All, Challengers, and Queer (2024). His work is known for its emotional complexity, often including themes of eroticism and settings in striking locations. He also directed the show We Are Who We Are, which he co-created and wrote for. Among the short films he has directed are The Staggering Girl and Fiori, Fiori, Fiori, the latter of which he also wrote; and among the documentaries he has directed are The Making of Lotus, Bertolucci on Bertolucci, and Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams. He also directed the music videos “Tell Me You Love Me” and “Toy Boy,” and advertisements for Fendi and Salvatore Ferragamo. He founded production company Frenesy Film Company.
Luca was born in Palermo, Sicily, Italy, to a Sicilian/Italian father, Gino, from Canicattì, Province of Agrigento, and an Algerian mother, Alia Boutaher; his mother was said to have been raised in Casablanca, Morocco. He spent part of his childhood in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where his father worked as teacher at a technical school.
He has said:
I’m dark-skinned because my mother is Algerian; when I came back to Palermo, my classmates starting calling me “n—-r.” I will never forget that. I learned very quickly how to be an outsider, and how to stay on the outside of the frame yet always look at what’s happening in the center.
Sources: http://www.iodonna.it
https://en.vogue.me
his mother name is Alia Boutaher
From Casablanca? That’s Morocco and her surname peaks in Morocco rather than Algeria. But in all interviews he said his mother is Algerian.
The countries literally border one another. So I’m not sure why it’d be strange to find a name that peaks in one also present in the other.
This guy’s story (the quote about his classmates calling him that word) doesn’t make much sense to me, he lived in Palermo, Sicily, A LOT Sicilians look like him or even darker, was he in a class full of northern Italians or something?
He’s out of place in Sicily at all
he’s not out of place*
First of all, even if stats say fair features are more common in northern regions, automatically assuming that “north= blonde/ south=dark looks” is rather superficial and often times pointless since italians from differents regions of the country did mix a LOT (especially), that is why you have lots of northern italians with – historically- southern surnames and vice versa.
About Guadagnino’s story, things like this sadly happen quite frequently – yeah, even in southern italian regions. With that said, the fact that you cannot tell southern italian features apart from north african/mena ones is the main reason it sounds so “crazy” to you. Yes, his skin tone is no darker than many southern europeans and he may not look too “exotic” in Sicily but that has to do with the fact that people with his background (one or both parents from north Africa) are not that uncommon in Sicily nowadays OR in any part of Italy, to be honest.
I’m curious, why do you think he would stand out and get called names if his looks were so common and not out of place?
whatever you say champ lmao
Whatever your parents thought when they had a child already brain dead at birth XD ;)
stay mad
Stay aggressively ignorant, nobody really expects anything else from someone with as many chromosomes as you have XDXDXDXD much love ;)
actual schizo lmao
Italians are the most complex europeans, they do vary a lot in features, i think it’s possible that what he said was exatly what happened, but who knows, he might be just exaggerating. He does look mixed with maghreb/berber, but i also can see some “tradicional” southern italian traits in him, and his complexion is really not uncommon in a place like Sicily at all.
Indeed, there’s huge variety so the real issue here is people obsessively trying to pin down, oversimplify things and confirm stereotypes, like user “NOTREALLYSMART” whose only goal in life is to prove how swarthy and exotic looking every italian MUST be, otherwise he cannot get an erection.
On a serious note though, I personally witnessed something similar (a kid of partial north african ancestry being called the “n” word in a southern italian school) and believe it or not, this sadly isn’t that uncommon, as bullyism in general.
Of course it is foolish, but not any more foolish than northern european calling southern ones racial slurs, racism is always stupid regardless.
you’re really triggered lmao
” whose only goal in life is to prove how swarthy and exotic looking every italian MUST be, otherwise he cannot get an erection.”
Literally what
@NOTREALLY
It apparently would not make much sense to some but…though he facially looks clearly more Southern European than North African, it seems he is able to get darker than average Sicilian.
With his mother: https://m.zimbio.com/photos/Luca+Guadagnino/Alia+Boutaher/vyO756-VCJB/Salvatore+Il+calzolaio+dei+sogni+Premiere
Also Sicilian people are not actually like how are portrayed by recurrent trolls in Internet forums, so who knows, this kid coming from an African environment, bullied at school, is not a weird story.
his parents’ names are Gino Guadagnino and Alia. His father is from Canicattì, Province of Agrigento. He has one sister, Monica.
He looks like Ross Douthat.
Lol, good one.
He spent part of his childhood in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia, were his Sicilian father worked as teacher.
A more complete interview of the one you have quoted is this (in Italian):
http://www.iodonna.it/personaggi/interviste/2011/cinema-intervista-luca-guadagnino-razzismo-documentario-30630649678.shtml