Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: Comedian electrifies Venice with anti-Berlusconi film

 
      Comedian electrifies Venice with anti-Berlusconi film
      Fri Sep 9, 2005 7:10 PM BST
By Clara Ferreira-Marques
VENICE (Reuters) - Italian satirist Sabina Guzzanti has taken a leaf out of 
filmmaker Michael Moore's book, hitting out at Prime Minister Silvio 
Berlusconi with a no-holds-barred documentary that met thundering applause 
in Venice on Friday.
In "Viva Zapatero!", shown at a one-off screening on the sidelines of the 
Venice Film Festival, Guzzanti takes on those who pulled her provocative 
show "Raiot" off the air in 2003 after a defamation suit from Berlusconi's 
broadcaster Mediaset.
Using a clever mix of unflattering off-the-cuff comments from politicians, 
street interviews and sketches -- the same combination that brought critical 
acclaim to Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" and "Farenheit 9/11" -- Guzzanti 
settles her scores and rekindles the debate on media censorship.
Guzzanti, famous for her impressions of Berlusconi, was the centre of a 
political storm in 2003 when "Raiot" was taken off the air by public 
broadcaster RAI after just one episode.
Mediaset's defamation suit had said the program included "grave lies and 
insinuations" about the private network that were potentially damaging.
Several RAI board members said they were all for satire, but Guzzanti had 
gone over the top. Guzzanti, blasted for "demonising" Berlusconi, brushed 
aside criticisms that perhaps her programme simply wasn't good enough and 
eventually took her show to the stage.
The satirist includes several moving interviews with journalists sidelined 
since the Berlusconi administration came to power, including a clip of 
veteran Enzo Biagi, who was shown the door after a televised interview with 
actor Roberto Benigni.
On Biagi's television show, the Oscar-winning Benigni famously said 
Berlusconi was so keen to take the spotlight that "at a wedding, he wants to 
be the groom, at a funeral, he wants to be the deceased".
Biagi, the newscaster who announced the end of fascism to Italians, movingly 
tells the camera he was sacked with a registered-delivery letter.
"Viva Zapatero!", the only film to get a standing ovation from critics at 
the Venice festival, is bound to stir up a media storm in Italy, where 
critics say Berlusconi's business and media concerns clash with his 
political role. Berlusconi has said that talk of conflict of interest is 
amiss.
Guzzanti -- who does not spare the press or the centre-left opposition, 
accused of not criticising enough -- spoke to some of Europe's top 
satirists, from the makers of France's "Guignols" to Britain's Rory Bremner, 
to ask why they are allowed more irreverence in their programmes.
"It is true that there is a general tendency to slightly repress, but 
nothing like what we have here, where the limits of the media are 
increasingly tight," she told daily la Repubblica in an interview on Friday.
"And the worst thing is that we have accepted this lack of freedom."
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2005-09-09T181002Z_01_FLE965372_RTRUKOC_0_UK-ARTS-VENICE-BERLUSCONI.xml&archived=False

beh alla luce dei risultati di Farenheit 9/11, speriamo che anche
questa diffamazione vada a buon fine :-) Comunque vi dovete decidere,
Sabina Guzzanti:
uesto non è un film contro Berlusconi.
Non penso che Berlusconi sia un genio del male, anche perché
sicuramente non
è un genio... E' un film contro il sistema marcio che consente a lui e
a
chiunque vada al governo di fare quello che gli pare''. Così Sabina
Guzzanti 
Insomma e' o non e'?