Sunday 27 September in prime time on Channel 5 and streaming on Mediaset Infinity airs for the first time My name is Carlo. Directed by Giacomo Campiotti and written together with Carlo Mazzotta, the TV film is an RTI and Movie Magic International co-production that tells the earthly parable of Carlo Acutis.
The film lands on the small screen 20 years after the young man’s death and one year after his proclamation as a saint on 7 September 2025 by Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Square. Playing the protagonist in the different phases of his adolescence is Samuele Carrino, flanked by Lucia Mascino and Flavio Parenti in the role of parents Antonia Salzano and Andrea, as well as Brayan Palliyagoda in the role of the young immigrant Rajesh.
Who was Carlo Acutis: the true story of the first millennial saint
Born in London in 1991 and raised in Milan, Carlo Acutis was a teenager apparently equal to millions of other peers of his generation, but capable of making a radical choice that made him the first saint of the digital age. His existence moves between the typical passions of his age: football, video games, friendships and a boundless love for IT, which leads him to self-taught programming and the creation of websites.
This youthful normality is accompanied by a profound faith lived in an extremely concrete way, translated daily into attention towards the least fortunate, companions in difficulty and the poor, like the young immigrant Rajesh welcomed by his family. His most revolutionary intuition consists in considering the internet not a place of perdition, but an extraordinary instrument of evangelization and good, so much so that he created a virtual exhibition on Eucharistic miracles that will travel around the world. Her life came to an abrupt end on 12 October 2006, struck down at just 15 years old by a fulminant leukemia which she faced with a disarming serenity that left doctors and nurses speechless.
The locations between Milan and Assisi
The filming, carried out in the spring of 2026, takes place among the symbolic places of the young saint’s existence: Milan, the city in which he grew up, and Assisi, custodian of his remains, also touching on Brianza and Oggiono in the province of Lecco. This geographical choice underlines the author’s desire to maintain the center of gravity on the earthly concreteness of the protagonist. The broadcast inaugurates the so-called Carlo month, a rich calendar of commemorative initiatives that anticipates the release in cinemas, scheduled for 15 October 2026, of the documentary Carlo Acutis. The young saint directed by Luca Salmaso.
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