21 March 1999, Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, California, USA
Thank you! Sophia, I leave(?) it here, the Oscar, but I want you. I want to be rocked by the waves of your beauty. Come here. Thank you! Thank you! This is a moment of joy and I want to kiss everybody because you are the maker(?) of the joy. He who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity sunrise, said [the] poet. And this is wonderful to be here. Wonderful! I feel like, now really, to dive in this ocean of generosity, this is too much. Your generosity, this is, uh, how do you say when the rain, the hailstorm, it's a hailstorm of kindness, of gratitude for you.
And really I would like to thank everybody that did the movie, because without them I couldn't fly with this movie. Everybody who did -- the producer, the screenwriter Cerami, Elda Ferri, Gianluigi Braschi, Nicola Piovani, Vittorio Cecchi Gori. Harvey Weinstein of Miramax Film[s], thank you very much for what you did. And also I would like to thank my parents in Vergaio, in a little village in Italy. They gave me their biggest gift, their poverty, and I want to thank for the lesson(?) of my life. Really, but thank you, Mamma and Babbo. Thank you! And thank you for your love. Because if I am here it's because people love the movies. So it's always a question of love.
I would like to dedicate this prize to those, because the subject the movie, those who are not here. They gave their life in order [that] we can say, "Life is beautiful." And I would like to also say, a kiss to Giorgio Cantarini, Giorgio, the little boy. And because we are talking love, Dante said: L'amore che muove il sole e le altre stelle -- Love will move the sun and the other stars. Love is a divinity, and sometimes if you have faith, like all the divinities it can appear. That's why I want to dedicate this prize to Nicoletta Braschi. Thank you.