ITALIAN 'VIVA ZAPATERO!'

Keeping up with the same spirit, BLACK&WHITE continues its cycle Reality with a famous recent Italian documentary, Viva Zapatero!, directed by the genius comedian Sabina Guzzanti.

Viva Zapatero! is clearly an anathema to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's regime and a real eye-opener about censorship and freedom. The satirist Sabina Guzzanti dares to open a door on a new shameful typical -and exclusive to Italy- anomaly in relation to other neighbouring countries with a satiric tradition: France, Germany, Holland and England.

It is a very necessary, not to be missed documentary. It will make us laugh and think, and maybe also offer us some hope. Come along: same day, same place at a slightly different time this once.

VIVA ZAPATERO!, by Sabina Guzzanti (2005)

March 31, 5.30 pm

Bushuis (Room F 0.22)

Kloveniersburgwal 48

'VIVA ZAPATERO!' (2005). 'A SATIRE ON THE BREACH OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION', by Guia Baggi

It was October 2002. Silvio Berlusconi was the Italian Prime Minister for the second time. The first, in 1994, lasted only a few months. This time, instead, he governed for five years. In Sofia, Bulgaria, during a press conference, Berlusconi accused two journalists, Michele Santoro and Enzo Biagi, and the satirist Daniele Luttazzi, from the public service broadcasting station RAI. His precise words were: "the use of television, paid with money from tax-payers, that Biagi… -What is the name of the other?- Santoro… -But the other?- Luttazzi have done is a criminal use. And I believe that it is a precise duty of the new management not to allow that to happen anymore". And that is what really happened. The three were fired. The episode remains in the Italian memory as the 'Bulgarian diktat'.

One year after, it was the turn of another comedian, Sabina Guzzanti. Guzzanti's family is publicly known in Italy. Paolo Guzzanti, Sabina's father, is a journalist who went into politics and became a senator for Berlusconi's party till 2008. Sabina's brother, Corrado, and sister, Caterina, are also actors and satirists. They used to work together in comedy shows critic with Italian politics on the public broadcasting service. The first was in 1989. Guzzanti siblings have parodied many politicians and celebrities with success in terms of audience and sharpness ever since. In November 2003, Sabina Guzzanti made her debut on RAI 3 with a new programme. After the launch press conference, the director of the channel communicated the stop of the show. Only the first episode was broadcasted. So Sabina Guzzanti organised a big mediatised event from the Rome Auditorium to broadcast the second on local and satellite television channels, on the Internet and in some theatres. The event gathered together people everywhere in Italy, especially along the network of ARCI's social and political clubs.

Both cases mark a sad chapter about freedom of expression in Italy, and the recent events confirm this has not ended yet. In fact, eight years after the 'Bulgarian diktat' and a temporary two-year government theoretically opposed to Berlusconi's coalition, satire in television is less and less present in the Italy of Silvio Berlusconi. Among the purged RAI professionals in 2002, only Michele Santoro went back to work in RAI in 2006. This month, he has been at the centre of another attempt of silencing critic points of view on the government and especially on the Prime Minister. This time, Berlusconi exercised direct pressures on the Authority of Communications and on the management of the public broadcasting service to stop Santoro's programme because it often talked about his trials and involvement in crimes. The calls were tapped and now allegations of power abuse are pending for Berlusconi and favouritism for a member of the Authority.

Santoro's programme has also been stopped with the excuse of regional elections and measures of fair treatment on political communication, known as 'par condicio'. This year, for the first time, 'par condicio' has been interpreted as the elimination of talk shows from television programming and their substitution with electoral tribunes in the month preceding the elections. Talk shows should start again from the 29^th of March 2010, if April Fools' day does not reserve new surprises.

On the 25^th of March, Michele Santoro replied to the limitations in the programming of the public broadcasting service with a mediatised event, similar in principle to the one mentioned above, called Raiperunanotte. It was a special edition of his programme, Annozero, from the stadium of Bologna and broadcasted on satellite, digital television and the Internet, reaching an extraordinary audience of more than 3 million people.

Viva Zapatero! tells half of this story of breaches in freedom of expression on Italian television. It questions the Italian public broadcasting service system and its tight relationship with politics. The documentary looks at the rest of Europe, at what is considered and allowed as satire abroad, at Zapatero in Spain and his public broadcasting service reforms. The images of the film go from some of Sabina's comic sketches to interviews with politicians, important public figures on the Italian cultural landscape, as Nobel Prize Dario Fo, or popular foreign satirists in France, the UK and the Netherlands.

Sabina Guzzanti shot Viva Zapatero! in 2005 as another reply to her experience of being censored. Viva Zapatero! also suggests the renewal of the Italian public broadcasting service based on the model Zapatero used in Spain. A little book with a specific proposal for a law to reform the public broadcasting service on popular initiative also came together with the DVD.

'THE CLASS' FLYER

The new BLACK&WHITE cycle, Reality, sets off with The Class (Entre les Murs). A so truthful and engaging film that you will feel as another student sitting at a desk in the room as the events slowly unfold. Its richness resides in its apparent objectivity.

The French docudrama has received critical acclaim, achieving a 97% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic lists Entre les murs with a rating of 94, making it one of the best reviewed films of that year, according to the website.

Judge by yourself, be intrusive and join The Class.

ENTRE LES MURS, by Laurent Cantet (2008)

March 24, 5 pm

Bushuis (Room F 0.22)

Kloveniersburgwal 48

'ENTRE LES MURS' (2008). REVIEW, by Naouel Abbadi

The Class, winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2008, plays like the role of a documentary with subtitles. The fiction is so much close to reality that when the bell rings, you feel ready to leave the class as well…

We follow a teacher and his students at a French middle school. There are discipline problems and a complaint about the teacher. Meetings are held. Actions are taken. Somehow they manage to complete the school year.

What you come to realize, however, is that not even the shrewdest or luckiest documentary filmmaker could manage to be always in the right spot when something dramatic is about to occur. In fact, this is a drama, but a drama so close to reality that it has the ring of truth.

© Haut et Court

The film doesn't fall into the easy clichés of the teacher at the bad school miraculously winning over the kids. The Class is an engaging drama and a chance to see how schooling works in France. It is ultimately a fascinating, sometimes exhilarating movie that seems to make a genuine contact with the classroom, and shows us an educational system struggling, and managing to survive.

BALKAN EVE!

After last week's dissapointment, BLACK&WHITE wants to compensate its followers with a special evening: two movies for the price of one (which is zero anyway)!

We want you to go East and wave goodbye to the 'Resistance' cycle by experiencing a totally different cinema: Southeastern European adventure through time and space! First, the Yugoslavian movie Virdzina will show us how even the toughest traditions can be resisted. And, second, the Romanian movie Silent Wedding resisting the Communist regime will put an end to this peculiar edition of the Mundus Film Club.

Last but not least, in between the movies the Montenegrin snack 'priganice' with cheese will be served. Feel free to bring your own refreshments as well. Everyone's invited!!

Click to enlarge and see the details!!

'VIRDZINA' (1991). 'A GIRL WHO BECOMES A BOY AND THEN, A WOMAN', by Katica Djurovic

Virgina tells a story from the end of 19^th century and depicts the life of people who used to live in the area of modern Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and Montenegro. Over the centuries, the patriarchal culture was very strong and, as a consequence, there was a widespread belief that the families without male heir were doomed. In order to save themselves from the curse, families without sons would sometimes declare their last born daughter as a son. These girls were called 'virgina' and only their closest family knew the truth about their sex.

This is the story about a girl who was born as the fourth daughter in a family without sons, and raised as a boy called Stevan in order to save the family reputation. Stevan behaves as any other young boy in the village. He fights, works in the field and consider women as less worth than him. Approaching his puberty, Stevan realizes that something is wrong with him and tries to resist not only to the father but at the same time to 'virdzina''s tradition. Instead of living his life the way it is, Stevan decides to fight for his life and right to be a woman.

Filmed in the vast land, with nothing but rocks, Virdzina describes the harsh life of its people, their culture, tradition and superstitions, that remained the same for centuries. Sometimes it may be hard to understand, but the film is shot without exaggeration.

VIRDZINA, by Srdjan Karanovic (1991)

March 17, 5 pm

Bushuis (Room F 0.22)

Kloveniersburgwal 48

"Virgina is much like its landscape: chilly, barren and arid, but also quite beautiful in the way of something exotic seen from a great distance. Mr. Karanovic, who wrote and directed the film, tells of Stephen's increasing desperation as she tries, at her father's obsessive bidding, to be something she isn't." -- The New York Times