VIVA ZAPATERO

Docu-film by Sabina Guzzanti http://www.vivazapatero.org/ A provocative phrase, especially for Italy, where Spain seems to have been forgotten after the electoral victory of Zapatero's social party, was chosen as the title of this motivating documentary film. The only news recently published by the Italian media about Spain, with the sole aim to demonise the current Prime Minister, regarded the “outrageous” approval by the Spanish government of homosexual weddings. [Note that when Aznar was in power, we have witnessed even his daughter’s wedding ceremony on television!] All of a sudden Ms Sabina Guzzanti,famous Italian comedian, politely banned from the Italian TV channels, reappears, stating that Viva Zapatero simply means “Hurrah for those politicians who keep their promises”. A simple message--as simple as this *domestic* documentary which does not aspire to be either a masterpiece of direction or photography, and even less can be compared to a Fahrenheit 9/11 for depth of investigation or quality of the images. The fact remains that we do need this movie, almost desperately, in a country falling increasingly down the *hit parades* for freedom of press (according to Reporter Sens Frontière, Italy is at the 40th place, after Chile and South Korea*). The picture emerging from this documentary is of a country that does not respect the different views, degrades journalism and has made television a grottesque vanity show. The recent cut of funds to the popular arts, included in the Financial Bill 2006, will cause a drastic reduction of the arts activities and will endanger more than 60 thousand jobs**. It is therefore important to give honour to the film’s objectives of: informing, investigating, questioning and protesting. Finally, it is interesting to notice that the satirical television programme by Ms Guzzanti, “Raiot”, was discontinued after the first episode for not being considered satiric and so being defaulting part of the contract with RAI. A puzzled Ms Guzzanti carried out an investigation at the highest levels of RAI, as well as enquiring several politicians on the meaning of “satire”. As predictable--no convincing answers came out. In order to get one, she needed ask some academics and satiric actors (amongst them, Dario Fo, who made a clear distinction between “satire” and “sfotto’” = “mockery”), demonstrating that those who arbitrarily decided to suspend her show do not even know the meaning of “satire” … bless the ignorance!

And long life to freedom of speech, thought and press! by Arianna Braccioni You can find the Italian version of the above review on: www.achmatova.blogspot.com

* http://www.disinformazione.it/libertadistampa.htm

** See article Cuts 'threaten Italian culture' (BBC)