Stefano Dorian Franco

9 september 1973

**Stefano Dorian Franco (Stefano Dorian Franco-Bora degli Franchi da Ceva ed La Briga, in original italian piemontese dialect) is an author and multidisciplinary cultural creator of Italian Piemontese and French descent, born on 9 September 1973 in Paris.** **He develops a body of work rooted in a transversal conceptual approach, seeking to explore and remix various registers of cultural creation in a multi-dimensional manner, shifting from one genre to another — a process that has become his signature.** **Deliberately avoids mainstream visibility and chooses not to appear in mass media, social networks, show business, or marketing circuits in order to keep the focus on the meaning of the works rather than on the personality of the creator. Instead of traditional promotional channels, he concentrates on the open-access publication of his work through academic and archivist platforms (ORCID, Figshare, GitHub, Archive.org, Wikimedia Commons), following a philosophy of transparency, verifiability, and traceability of cultural knowledge, ensuring that his creations remain freely accessible under Creative Commons.** **Active internationally since his beginnings in 1992 during the Siege of Sarajevo in the Balkan War, he has worked while maintaining a consciously discreet media profile across a dozen countries in Europe and Asia, expressing himself through a wide range of genres: sociology, war reportage, ethnological documentaries, primitive arts and rituals, tribal and ethnic expressions, medieval history, classical and modern literature, theatre, music, painting, photography, digital art powered by artificial intelligence, audio productions (audiobooks, radio programmes) for inclusive access to culture, experimental videograms, urbex, exhibitions and installations in augmented and virtual reality, as well as live performances in the form of happenings.** 1 # Family origins, from the Italian Piedmont and County of Nice to Paris He hails from the Italian house Franchi da Coni, a lineage originating from Cuneo and Turin in the alpine Piedmont region of the Duchy of Savoy (1416–1720), later the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), attested on 26 January 1425 in Blasonario subAlpino dei Nobili. In the 15th century, during the Renaissance, various cadet and cousin branches were customarily sent to perform military functions as Condottieri (cavaliere capitani d'arma) in frontier territories. The cadet branch settled in the Marquisate of Ceva and later in La Briga- Tende, in the County of Nice, under the House of Savoy since its annexation in 1388 (Franchi da Ceva ed La Briga); cousin branches settled in the Republic of Genoa (de Franchi-Toso) and the Duchy of Tuscany in Florence (Franchi da Livorno). Their shared coat of arms in the armorial bears "Di Rosso a tre corone d'oro", representing three golden crowns symbolising the three territories. Their motto is "Mens rationi subieta". In the 16th century, the Franchi da La Briga established lineage through two marriages celebrated in the Cathedral of Sainte-Réparate in Nice: on 3 May 1564, Cavaliere capitano d'arma Onorato sanPier Franchi da La Briga, known as “Franco” in the Nissart dialect (1525–1591), with Giacomina Cottalorda of the Signori and later Marquises Cottalorda de Breil-sur-Roya; and on 12 August 1581, Lorenzo Franchi da La Briga (1564–1599) with Bertoreimeta Barlet of the Barons Barletti d'Aiglun. In the 17th and 18th centuries, further alliances followed, also in the same cathedral: on 3 August 1687 (d’Amirato Barralis de Luceram-Auda), 26 February 1730 (Verany-Saissi de Châteauneuf), 30 January 1761 (Teisseire-de Gioanni), and 22 January 1790 (di Marzio de May di Villafranca-de Bus). In 1860, a major historical shift redrew borders: Nice and Savoy were annexed to France under the Second Empire of Napoleon III, while Italy was unified in Turin with the Risorgimento in 1861. The Piedmontese Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861) — comprising Savoy, Piedmont, Nice, Aosta Valley, and the island of Sardinia — gave way to the modern Kingdom of Italy within new borders. On 29 April 1867, in the church of Saint-Pierre d’Arène in Nice, a first union took place between a royalist Italian family and a republican French Provençal family the diplomatic mediator Onorato Honoré Franco degli Franchi da La Briga (Nice, 1845 – Paris, 1921) married the fashion designer and translator for European courts in Monte Carlo, Rose Louise Barquier de Clausonne (Nice, 1848 – 1906). She was descended from the Maison Barquier de Clausonne (Dictionnaire de la noblesse française, La Chesnaye des Bois, 1784), consular family of Antibes since 23 July 1464 and titled Counts de Barquier. She was the daughter of the couturier Stefano Dorian Barquier de Clausonne-Sordello (Cuneo Piedmont, 1824 – 1889), and the great-niece of the last mayor of Antibes under the First Empire (1809–1814) and Freemasonic dignitary of the Antibes lodge La Constance, Maurice de Barquier de Clausonne (1769 – 1840), as well as of Napoleon’s General Count Joseph-David de Barquier de Clausonne (1757 – 1844). She was also the niece and student of the Nice-based painter Vincenzo Vincent Fossat (1822 – 1897). In the County of Nice, newly French since 1860 and henceforth renamed the department of Alpes-Maritimes, three members of various Franco clan branches were elected mayors of communes: in Belvèdere (1871), Nice-Falicon (1888), and La Turbie above the Principality of Monaco (1892). The couple Onorato Honoré & Rose were sent on a diplomatic mission to organise the logistic of the Italian stand at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle and settled in the capital. Their firstborn, Stefano Etienne Franco-Barquier de Clausonne (1868 – 1936), married Marie Gaumont in Paris in 1899, from whom came a female line of descendants. Their eleventh and final child, the casino director and co-founder of the Sanremo casino, and maritime shipping magnate between Nice-Genoa-Corsica-Sardinia, Giuseppe Joseph Franco-Barquier de Clausonne (Nice, 1881 – 1972), after marrying in 1910 the Piedmontese Ines Giuseppina Josephine Bora di Biella (Turin Piedmont, 1889 – 1942), founded the cadet nissardo-torinese branch of the Franco-Barquier de Clausonne: the Franco-Bora, whose parish is in Turin, Piedmont. In the 20th century, the 12th generation followed: the art dealer-curator and diplomatic adviser Armando Franco-Bora (Nice, 1910 – Paris, 2003), and his cousin, the mountaineer Jean Franco-Garro (Nice, 1914 – 1971), leader of a 1955 Himalayan expedition to Nepal. While Jean would later be appointed Director of ENSA (the National School of Skiing and Mountaineering), Armando married in Paris, on the eve of the Second World War in 1939, Juliette Guillebot d’Anzème (1907 – 1956), originally from rural France (Creuse and Corrèze) giving birth to an only son: ClaudioPaolo ClaudePaul Franco-Bora (1940 – 1983). He became a career soldier in the 1960s with the R.I.M.A. (Marine Infantry Regiments), and then a Human Resources Director for Italian firms across Europe in the 1970s, deliberately breaking away from noble traditions to emancipate himself from them. He married in Paris in 1973 a Parisian, Céline Marie Bleivs van Nursberghe, a journalist-archivist and editorial committee member for literary publishing houses, giving birth the same year in Paris to an only son: Stefano Dorian Franco (Stefano Dorian Franco-Bora degli Franchi da La Briga, in full original Piedmontese dialectal form), baptised under the Roman Catholic Apostolic rite in the family’s church since 1867, Saint-Pierre d’Arène. He represents, in the 14th gen, the last direct male line of this clan in diaspora in Paris. 2 # Childhood and Early Adolescence in Paris, Breaking Away, Departure to London After spending his childhood in his birth district of Paris (the 14ᵗʰ arrondissement, from Parc Montsouris to Montparnasse), he lost his father at the age of 9, on 9 April 1983. He was left with no siblings, and his remaining family resided in Turin. He began his adolescence between two worlds that stood in stark social and cultural contrast to one another: on the one hand, the posh Passy district in the 16ᵗʰ arrondissement, where his father had lived and where his grandfather, a diplomatic adviser, continued to exert his influence; and on the other, the multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan suburbs of Val-de-Marne, where his mother lived and where he was schooled. For undocumented reasons, he disappeared during the summer of 1989, initiated legal emancipation proceedings to obtain majority status at the age of 16, and adopted the pseudonym “Allen Katona” as his name of use—an alias he would keep for his activities from age 16 to 30, spanning from 1989 to 2003. He permanently left the school system by walking out of secondary school, never entering lycée and thus acquiring no formal qualifications. He moved first to Brighton and London, then spent two years travelling across Europe with a backpack, taking on various odd jobs in a distinctly “on the road” spirit, choosing to learn about life as a self-taught individual. 3 # Early 1990s: Bohemian Life, Influences and Youthful References After more than two years of disappearance abroad with no news given, he reappeared in Paris on New Year’s Day 1992 and temporarily settled again in his native and favourite neighbourhood, near the Parc Montsouris. There, he led a bohemian life as a titi parisien, engaging in various informal activities: selling rare and antique books along the banks of the Seine, translating for tourists during guided tours of the painting galleries at the Louvre Museum, or posing as a nude model for the École des Beaux-Arts and for several artists studios in Montparnasse or Montmartre, in order to afford his own equipment as an apprentice painter and photographer—thus embracing both the role of creator and that of subject. This neo-romantic youth existence in Paris is, to him, perfectly encapsulated in songs such as La Bohème by Charles Aznavour or Paris le Flore by Étienne Daho. He frequented literary cafés and cultural soirées of the Rive Gauche, and became the factotum of painter Colette Ville, an artistic figure of the 1960s Saint-Germain-des-Prés scene, who introduced him to the grande dame of this milieu: Juliette Gréco. The Colette atelier was located in the neighbouring Alésia district at the time. Using the pseudonym Louis, he appeared regularly on the airwaves of the free radio station Radio Ici & Maintenant (RIM), invited by its director Didier Deplaige, an emblematic alternative associative station on the Paris FM band offering open-mic broadcasts led by listeners. He delivered improvised segments on contemporary literature, poetry, and cinema. He aligned himself with the cinephile movement of the Latin Quarter, close to the art et essai cinema circles and the journal Les Cahiers du Cinéma. He developed a marked interest in the experimental cinema of Chris Marker and the ethnographic documentary approach of Jean Rouch. He organised and hosted lectures in Parisian film clubs, especially on his favourite filmmakers: Stanley Kubrick, Luchino Visconti, and—on the French scene—Léos Carax, whose trilogy Boy Meets Girl / Mauvais Sang / Les Amants du Pont-Neuf he considered the defining work of his cinephile youth. Beyond literature, cinema or visual arts, his foremost artistic passion remained opera, particularly the Italian baroque of Scarlatti and Vivaldi. His favourite places in the capital were the Parc Montsouris (where he was born and raised), the Pont-Neuf, and the Opéra Garnier. Despite these experiences within Parisian cultural circles, it was above all human adventure on the ground, abroad, that continued to attract him. He once again left Paris, determined to follow the path of travel, driven by a desire for direct confrontation with what he called the school of life. In his view, the complexity of the human soul can only be explored through extreme experiences lived in reality—not through the lens of theory or fiction. He aspires to be defined by a nobility of heart rather than of title, and by the merit of lived experience rather than the privileges conferred by inheritance. 4 # Operations in War Zones (1992–1995) The early 1990s in Europe were marked by the direct consequences of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, symbolising the end of the "Iron Curtain" that had divided Western and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. This geopolitical reconfiguration ushered in a new era, notably characterised by the disintegration of Yugoslavia, a former federation composed of several multi-ethnic entities. The ensuing conflicts, between 1991 and 2001, involved Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Montenegro in turn. The epicentre of the conflict rapidly shifted to Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose capital, Sarajevo, was subjected to a siege lasting nearly four years (1992–1996), the longest in Europe since the Second World War. In a context where the internet was not yet available to the general public and where external communications from combat zones were virtually non-existent, the circulation of information and images was extremely restricted. A few rare reports, broadcast by international television channels, bore witness to a level of violence unprecedented on the European continent since 1945. This situation prompted part of the European youth to become involved, whether through humanitarian action or field journalism, driven by the desire to offer concrete assistance to civilian populations plunged into chaos. It was in this context that Stefano Dorian Franco, then operating under the pseudonym Allen Katona, became actively involved in the conflict. He took part in a joint mission that was both humanitarian and journalistic in nature. In cooperation with the French NGO Secours populaire français (SPF), represented by its coordinator Guy Chouly, he was tasked with infiltrating besieged Sarajevo in order to fulfil a dual objective: on the one hand, to identify safe routes and establish contacts to allow humanitarian convoys (carrying food and medical supplies) to pass through; on the other hand, to write a war correspondence to inform public opinion of the reality on the ground. He formed a field tandem with young Sicilian photojournalist Marco Amenta, then working with the Gamma agency. Amenta would later become a filmmaker, directing works such as The Sicilian Girl (2008) and Anna (2024). Together, they arrived in Zagreb (Croatia) on 23 December 1992, where the United Nations press centre issued them with official accreditation from UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force). Allen Katona was granted press card number 5889 — a key to accessing active military zones. At 19 years and 3 months of age, he thus became the youngest officially accredited international war reporter on site. On 28 December 1992, they boa