These were the first days of March 2005 when we were one step away from realizing the real colossal thing about the great Cremonese masters. Antonio Stradivari AND Joseph Guarneri. A strange character with oriental features, rather stocky, with a mustache and tail, a black biker “nail”, wandered the streets of Cremona, strolling like any other tourist. No one who met him on the street could have guessed that one of the most important Chinese directors was actually hiding under the anonymity of his clothes. Gu Rong who, in the shadow of Torrazzo, was looking for the best views, where to deploy the continuation of a successful television series “I have a lover”, which told about the theft of a precious violin. And what place would be more suitable for the action of the second part of the story, if not Cremona? While waiting for a meeting with the local administration to conclude the first agreements on the necessary filming permits, the director began to look around. After a long stop near Piazza del Comune and visiting some of the master shops in the area, Gu Rong, accompanied by a co-writer Lin Sha and his master friend Xiao Cheng Keon the advice of President Anlai Walter Nicoliniwent to the store Francesco Bissoletti in Piazza San Paolo. After a heartfelt exchange of gifts, the director picked up the camera and began selecting angles and shots to be used to study the set layout, imagining the shop as one of the locations Gu Rong would use during the course. filming “I have a lover” in Cremona. Before completing the inspection, the Chinese director ordered two instruments from the craftsman from Cremona. The solution was ripe after trying out one of the workshop’s tools: “Wonderful – Gu Rong commented – I want two violins to be built from this model and made from a solid bottom piece.“. “I will build them after the 1715 Stradivari model. Bissolotti explained, the best shape ever created: perfect dimensions and outstanding sound quality.”
During a follow-up meeting with the provincial adviser for education and school construction Peter MoriniGu Rong improved his proposal: to create twinning with his hometown. hangzhou, known as the “Venice of China”, of which he bore in the name of its mayor, a city of then three million and 800 thousand inhabitants (today it has eleven million), enhanced by the presence of Cremona and her violins. in the new 17 episodes of the series “I have a lover”, filmed entirely in Italy. But above all, a film about Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù and Antonio Stradivari, which the director would like to film entirely in Cremona: a desire born of his passion for the history of violin making and the Cremonese violin makers of the eighteenth century, but also for the manufacture of modern violins. All the actors will be Italian and names have begun to appear, above all the name Monica Bellucci. Pietro Morini also suggested a new location for the film “I have a lover‘: the recently restored Stang Palace with the precious ‘Napoleon Room’. Then, after initial enthusiasm, Gu Rong continued his tour of Italy. But this film, which so stimulated the imagination, was never heard from again. And the proposal for twinning with Hangzhou, the city that Marco Polo called “the most beautiful in the world”, also fell on deaf ears.