Among the oldest films on the life of St. John Bosco is Goffredo Alessandrini's 1935 work entitled ‘Don Bosco’. Starring Gian Paolo Rosmino, Maria Vincenza Stiffi, Roberto Pasetti, Ferdinando Mayer, Vittorio Vaser, Felice Minotti, the film recounts the life of Don Bosco, from his birth to his canonisation in 1934. It traces the birth of the oratory, the various confrontations with the neighbourhood and local authorities, the start of the professional and agricultural schools, the foundation of the Salesian Congregation, until his death in 1888.
Years later, in 1987, ‘Giovanni il ragazzo del sogno’ was released, distributed by the Salesian publishing house Elledici and starring Luigi Rosa, Michela Zio, Michele di Mauro and Paolo Bramante, directed by Giuseppe Rolando. At the centre of the work is the life of the young John Bosco: his childhood as a peasant at the Becchi farmstead, his studies in Chieri, the many jobs he did to support himself, his entry into the seminary in Turin under the guidance of Fr Cafasso. The photograph was particularly popular at the time, portraying Chieri in the first half of the 19th century (then a village of nine thousand inhabitants, halfway between farming tradition and the development of industry, particularly textiles) and the surrounding countryside.
Instead, ‘Don Bosco’ by director Leandro Castellani, with actors Ben Gazzara, Patsy Kensit, Piera Degli Esposti, and Philippe Leroy, came a year later. Here we see an elderly Don Bosco, whose thoughts return to childhood. He retraces all the actions he took to realise his greatest dream: to dedicate himself completely to the young. The film tells how Don Bosco, with the help of Fr Borel and other priests, began to lay the first bricks on what would later become the Salesian community, welcoming all the young people of Turin to the oratory. Despite his good intentions, he was hindered several times by the politicians of the time and the insurrectionists, but Don Bosco always managed to get away with it. He then went to Pope Pius IX and, years later, to Pope Leo XIII to seek support for his community, which in the meantime had grown so large and had many followers. In the end Don Bosco thanks Our Lady, whom he considered the source of his work of charity, with a prayer, and then dies.
The 2004 Raiuno miniseries ‘Don Bosco’, directed by Lodovico Gasparini and starring Flavio Insinna, Lina Sastri, Daniel Tschirley, Lewis Crutch and Charles Dance, was very popular. Narrated in flashback, it is the story of a vocation lived in the sign of joy and optimism, despite the difficulties that litter Don Bosco's path. Always intent on saving the desperate youth of Turin, Don Bosco suffered ostracism from the hierarchies. We see in the series how Archbishop Lorenzo Fassati forced Don Bosco to dissolve the Salesian congregation, which he had founded, on the advice of the repentant and dying Vicar Clementi. The news threw the priest, already ill, into despair, almost killing him. Having recovered, Don Bosco made an official apology to Fassati, teaching his boys the value of humility. The Pope then definitively approved the Salesian congregation.
Finally, 2012 saw the release of ‘Maìn - La casa della felicità’, directed by Simone Spada and starring Gaia Insenga and Paolo Civati. Focusing mainly on the biography of Mother Mazzarello, the film devotes ample space to her encounter with Don Bosco in 1864, which led ‘Maìn’ to the foundation of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians.
