So it’s of no real surprise then that the Blues’ resolute No.44 should be one of 16 Australians of Italian descent featured in a series of vignettes shot by Daybreak Films and now screening at Museo Italiano in Carlton’s neighboring Faraday Street.
The film, commissioned by Museo Italiano, also features amongst others the comedian Santo Cilauro, the musician Kavisha Mazzella and the kickboxer Sam Greco.
The two-minute Carrazzo short, filmed on location at Visy Park in 2010, opens with the following quotation from the man himself, which perhaps mirrors the “No Passengers” theme adopted by the football club this year.
“With everything my grandparents and great grandparents went through . . . that mentality carries through into everyone sticking together . . . ”.
Sitting in the shadows of the Ald. Gardiner Stand, Carrazzo takes advantage of an all-too-brief break between training sessions to hark back to the days when he supported Carlton as a kid. He even recounts the time he danced cartwheels on the makeshift footy ground which also doubled as the family front yard when the current club President so ably led his men to its 16th and last premiership.
Carrazzo, appropriately enough the last Carlton player to complete his senior debut on the hallowed Princes Park turf, also talks of his great grandfather first being seduced by the roar of the crowd as he ventured past the old ground on matchday.
Little wonder he so proudly declares: “I was lucky enough to come to Carlton and play for the club that I barracked for. That meant a lot to my grandparents who migrated to Carlton when they first came out from Italy”.
At a time when the AFL is pushing the multicultural barrow, the Carrazzo short reinforces the point that the Carlton Football Club opened its turnstiles to many ethnic communities like the Italians, even before the great Sergio Silvagni first laced a boot.
To view the film, click here.
