Silvio Berlusconi’s long tentacles stretch out to almost every section of Italian society. The self-made billionaire and three-time prime minister owns publishing houses, a film company and various TV stations, and was the owner of soccer team AC Milan for more than 30 years. His first successes were in the construction business. In early 1970s Milan, he completed a variety of large building projects, including the utopian Milano 2 that he conceived as a "ghetto for the rich." In this schematic and slightly surrealistic film essay, Riccardo Giacconi sketches out the development of this neighborhood, which would later become home to TeleMilano. As Italy’s first commercial TV station, TeleMilano represented the start of Berlusconi’s media empire—it also served as the basis for his future political power. Meanwhile, the area has come to resemble yet another normal suburb. Presented through aged and yellowed pictures, the right-wing populist ideology of those times seems far away. But the location shots aren't frozen in the past—they show actual movement. Even after a half century, Berlusconi’s influence is still very much alive.
Credits
Director
Riccardo Giacconi
Production
Estelle Benazet for Le Fresnoy, National Studio of Contemporary Arts
Co-production
Careof
Cinematography
Léo Lefèvre
Editing
Riccardo Giacconi
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2017
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