During the 20th stage of the Giro d’Italia 2025 (Verrès–Sestriere), broadcast on May 31st on RAI and available on RaiPlay, a touching and unexpected moment enriched the sports narrative.
Fabio Genovese, commentator of the event, temporarily shifted the attention to Mario Celso, founder of IREM, an emblematic figure of Italian technical innovation, the inventor of the revolutionary rectifier for film projection.
The story retraces the stages of an extraordinary life: from imprisonment in a concentration camp to the creation of a device capable of solving the “flickering” issue in film projection. An invention that improved the viewing experience in cinemas all over the world.
Transcription Giro d’Italia – Stage 20: Verrès – Sestriere (final phases) – Minute 24.57
Francesco Pancani: … we return with Fabio Genovese – good morning Fabio – to a small village: Sant’Antonino di Susa, and we can call it an Oscar-winning village!
Fabio Genovese: Absolutely, because this place really shows the character of the people from these lands.
In 1917, a man was born here who had a passion for electricity, which at the time wasn’t very well known yet, but life was tough, he had to do other things… his father died, he went to work with his mother, worked as a street vendor and so on, but the war called him back to duty. He was interned in a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia and there, the Germans, knowing of his skills, employed him to repair radios. From there, he returned to Italy and would have liked to do more practical, peaceful work, but the film industry needed him. There was a problem with flickering.
You know, in the early days of film, when movies were shown in cinemas, the light flickered a bit, it wasn’t perfect. It was the light passing through the individual frames… it needed improvement, and he made it happen! With a new rectifier for film projection, he founded IREM – Industria Raddrizzatori Elettromeccanici – right here in Sant’Antonino di Susa, his hometown. He insisted on working here even when cinemas all over the world recognized that his invention was truly incredible. Young boys aged 13–14–15 worked for him and little by little the company grew, but he was determined to stay here.
Cinemas all over the world demanded his invention until, one day, and let’s get to the point quickly… we arrive at 1991 when Karl Malden sends him a fax from Hollywood saying: “Well, you should come here because at the Oscar headquarters Tom Hanks will present you with an Oscar”. An Oscar because this man had made cinema great.
Cinemas around the world managed to show films better thanks to him. He never wanted to leave Sant’Antonino di Susa, never wanted to outsource production to save money.
They told him: “But you would spend less by having people work in the East” and he replied: “But I live in a place surrounded by love and that is priceless.”
When he won the Oscar, and we’ll close with a perfect quote of his, he said: “Please forgive my pronunciation, but it’s influenced by my mountain dialect. This award, however, is just a bonus, because happiness is having done the job I love.”
Francesco Pancani: An Oscar-winning village, a village – Sant’Antonino di Susa – of dreams that come true.
