Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Italy’s wartime fascist dictator and a right-wing member of Parliament, was unsuccessful in her attempt to have an Israeli-made film about her withdrawn from a film festival this week in Sicily.
The film, “In the Name of the Duce,” was shot by Israeli director Amos Gitai during Mussolini’s losing electoral campaign for mayor of Naples last fall. It was compared to “The War Room,” the documentary about President Clinton’s campaign.
A communique issued last week by Mussolini’s party, the National Alliance, said the film was a distortion of reality.
The Milan daily Corriere della Sera said Gitai and his crew were evicted from Mussolini’s office after they began filming a poster-sized portrait of the dictator Benito Mussolini on the wall. The crew also filmed the entire scene of their being thrown out of the room.
Gitai said Mussolini had demanded the documentary be withdrawn from the festival without having seen it. “The blind reactions of Mussolini reveal the mentality and methods of the right, ready to repress the free exercise of information,” he told reporters.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
