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The screenwriter Vincenzo Cerami was born in Rome in 1940. Soon after his twenties, he gave up his university studies in physics to devote himself to poetry, language studies, novels, theatre and cinema, working as set designer and scriptwriter.

As a set designer he has worked for the most important Italian directors, including Pier Paolo Pasolini and Gianni Amelio. In cooperation with Roberto Benigni he wrote Il piccolo diavolo, Johnny Stecchino, Il mostro, Life is beautiful and Pinocchio.

He also wrote prose and musical drama texts. In 1999, together with maestro Nicola Piovani he produced the musical story Canti di scena. In 2000 he published, with Silvia Ziche, the comic strip Olimpo s.p.a. A successful movie was made out of his first book Un borghese piccolo piccolo. Cerami, who is an expert on Hans Christian Andersen, wrote the preface for Bruno Berni's new translation of Andersen's fairy tales into Italian.

Vincenzo Cerami's statement on becoming a HCA ambassador:
"Andersen knew very well what a fable was, but just moved in the opposite direction, in the pursuit of pure literature, rather than the writing of fables, looking for charm not outside the human being, but rather in his/her most inner self, avoiding any symbolic representations and sublimations, to the extent of pushing scholars towards a redefinition of the concept of the fable itself. We can take the splendid story entitled  An image from the bastions of the city and try to catalogue it as a fable. There is not a single element or object that is not realistic. However, it is a fantastic tale, full of magic, very intense. It is no wonder that Andersen has unanimously been considered the most important Danish writer ever."