Marcella Di Folco (7 March 1943 – 7 September 2010) was an Italian LGBT rights activist, actor, and politician. In her film appearances, played in male characters before transition, she is credited as Marcello Di Falco.

Marcella Di Folco
Marcella Di Folco
Born(1943-03-07)7 March 1943
Died7 September 2010(2010-09-07) (aged 67)
NationalityItalian
Other namesMarcello Di Falco
Occupations
  • Activist
  • actress
  • politician
Political partyFederation of the Greens

Career

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In 1988, she became president of the MIT - Movimento Identità Transessuale [1] (Transsexual Identity Movement) and in 1997 vice-president of the Osservatorio Nazionale sull'Identità di Genere[2][3] (National Observatory on Gender Identity, ONIG).

She was elected municipal councilor of Bologna in 1995, with the Green party. She was the first open trans woman to hold a political public office in the world.[4] In 2014, at the 32nd Torino Film Festival, the film Una nobile rivoluzione (A Noble Revolution) by Simone Cangelosi, which tells her story had its premiere. In October 2019 Italian Journalist Bianca Berlinguer edited Storia di Marcella che fu Marcello (The Story of Marcella that was Marcello before) a confession of Marcella Di Folco's life she recorded before Marcella died. In 2024 her documentary biography has been included in Disobedience Archive, a Marco Scotini project dealing with LGBT issues, invited by Curator Adriano Pedrosa at Foreigners Everywhere art exhibition at 60th Venice Biennale.

Personal life

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Di Folco had gender corrective surgery in 1987.[2][3]

Filmography

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References

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  1. ^ "movimento identità transessuale". Archived from the original on 2007-02-23. Retrieved 2019-05-15.
  2. ^ a b "Onig.it". Archived from the original on 2008-12-11. Retrieved 2019-05-15.
  3. ^ a b "Se n'è andata Marcella Di Folco anima delle lotte delle transessuali - Bologna - Repubblica.it". Bologna - La Repubblica. 7 September 2010.
  4. ^ "È morta Marcella Di Folco Il principe di "Amarcord", icona dei trans - Corriere di Bologna". corrieredibologna.corriere.it.