Paolo Logli

Paolo Logli was born in La Spezia in 1960 – a decade when television was still black and white, guitars had cables, and scripts were typed on an Olivetti. He, however, was different: the day he was born he already demanded colour, stereo sound, and a storyline. As a child he spoke very little but told many stories: to friends, classmates, the barber, and any passer-by he considered a “potential secondary character.”

At twenty-two he graduated with honours in History from the University of Pisa — because he loved every kind of story: the real ones, the invented ones, and especially those that sound invented but are true (the most dangerous kind). From that moment on, he never stopped. In 1983 he won an EEC scholarship in social communications and began writing for radio. Years later he would say that radio is where the voice becomes an image — and also the place where, if you make a mistake, nobody sees you.

Then came cinema, television drama, and theatre. Rumour has it that he has written more scripts than tram tickets, but that’s probably legend. The truth is that, from Il commissario Manara to K2 – La montagna degli italiani, from La peggiore estate della mia vita to School of Mafia, through the noir novel Quis ut Deus and the miniseries I fantasmi di Portopalo, he has crossed genres and formats like a tireless traveller constantly switching means of transport just to avoid boredom: radio, animation, soap operas, feature films, series, docu-fiction… even a project involving the Beatles and one with Padre Pio — without, apparently, the two of them ever arguing.

Some call him prolific. He prefers “curiously sleepless.” Ideas strike him at hours that do not respect any labour contract: late at night, on trains, in supermarkets, in public health waiting rooms. And when it’s too late to turn them into a screenplay, they become short stories — as in Il Dio dei giorni dispari, where he tries to bring order to the odd-numbered days… leaving the even ones free.

Theatre is the other free zone for his stories: monologues, recital pieces, one-acts, imagined biographies, and real voices walking across invented stages. On stage he has given speech to Tenco, Maria Callas, Puccini — even a jukebox. In Giacomo, mio figlio he explored the emotional legacy of a genius, and in Essere Maria Callas, he let a universally known character speak with a voice that few have truly heard. He is convinced that music is a silent narrative thread, running through storytelling like an underground river.

Meanwhile, he writes for RAI, Mediaset, RaiPlay, magazines, festivals, documentaries, institutional events, musical tours and special projects. He has taught screenwriting at university, directed festivals, curated schedules, and collaborated with anyone willing to lend their voice to a story: actors, musicians, singers, presenters — even landscapes. He once said: “Even an industrial parking lot, if listened to carefully, has its own soundtrack.”

He has won awards — many awards — but insists that the real ones are the stories that stay with you after you’ve written them. And the characters who keep staring at you, silently, as if to say: “We’re not done. You still owe us a better life.”

So Paolo Logli starts again. With another story, another film, another monologue. Or maybe with a single voice — like that of The Sentinel of Dawn, published on Amazon and carried forward through Patreon as a direct line between the author and those reader-sentinels who refuse to face the night alone.

When he isn’t writing, he reads. And when he isn’t reading, he listens. Because, in the end, this is his true craft: listening to what has not yet been told.