How storytelling became Marco Calvani’s path to belonging — and solidarity
At 18 years old, Marco Calvani left home in the outskirts of Florence, Italy, with nothing but a train ticket to Rome. He had no plan, no safety net — just a deep, unshakable need to find a place where he could be fully himself.
Marco grew up in a small town outside Florence, where he felt different from a young age — different from what others expected and what he was allowed to be. “I was feeling something that had no definition, no representation” he says. “No one around me who could embrace and understand and accept me.”
Finding His Voice Through Theater
After both his parents passed away, a teenage Marco turned to theater. It became his refuge. “It was the first place [where] I met all these people putting their hearts and bodies and sweat on stage,” he recalls. “It felt like the center of the world.”
“As a gay man, I had this impulse to go to other places and find people who were like me,” he says. “Some people may call it ambitious, but I just followed my inspiration.”
That journey would take him far beyond Italy. Eventually, it would take him to New York, to theater stages and film sets, to stories that needed telling — and to a mission that mirrors his own: Upwardly Global’s work helping immigrants and refugees rebuild careers in the U.S.
That center kept expanding. As Marco moved through cities and countries, he carried the grief of losing his parents, the weight of being othered, and the strength of someone who had learned to survive by listening, deeply and compassionately, to the stories of those around him.
“I could connect to that lonely place, and it has shaped the stories I want to tell,” he says. “People who were at the margins, I wanted to put them in the forefront.”
Stories from the Margins
That calling has shaped Marco’s work as a playwright, filmmaker, and actor. His debut short film, “The View from Up Here,” explored the subtle tensions between a Syrian refugee and her American neighbors. His feature film “High Tide” follows a Brazilian immigrant whose undocumented status strips him of agency and identity. And in Netflix’s “The Four Seasons,” Marco’s portrayal of Claude — a character he rooted in the quiet complexities of being an immigrant — brought new unexpected depth to a classic comedy.
But Marco doesn’t just tell truthful stories. He lives them.
“I came here with a dream,” he says. “Not the American Dream, but it was a dream of a better life. It was a dream of better opportunities.”
That dream is what connects him to Upwardly Global. “Immigration is the biggest issue of our time,” he says. “What [Upwardly Global] does is very timely, so when your invitation came to me, it just felt like a gift.”
Marco knows what it means to be lifted by the kindness of strangers. “People gave me a roof when I didn’t have one. They gave me food when I didn’t have it. They gave me a job. A hug,” he says. “I found so much solidarity, and this is what brought me here.”
Using His Platform
Now, as an honoree at Upwardly Global’s 25th Anniversary Gala, Marco is using his platform to speak up. “I don’t feel powerful,” he says. “But I know I’ve been given a microphone. And I want to use it the right way.”
As we celebrate 25 years and thousands of immigrants served, we honor Marco’s voice, his vision, and his belief in the power of compassion.
His mantra, gifted to friends on bracelets, is simple: “My humanity is my resistance.”