Videocracy is a 2009

2009 in film

The year 2009 saw the release of many films. Seven made the top 50 list of highest-grossing films, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that as of this year, their Best Picture category would consist of ten nominees, rather than five .- Highest-grossing films :Please note...

 documentary

Documentary

A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...

 film directed by Swedish-Italian Erik Gandini

Erik Gandini

Erik Gandini is an Italian- Swedish film director, producer and writer.He has made several films including: Amerasians, Sacrificio: Who Betrayed Che Guevara?, Surplus: Terrorized into Being Consumers, Gitmo and Videocracy.Videocracy has gone on to win awards at Toronto Film Festival, Sheffield...

 about Italian television and its impact on Italian culture and politics, and about Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...

's powerful position in these.
Erik Gandini

Erik Gandini

Erik Gandini is an Italian- Swedish film director, producer and writer.He has made several films including: Amerasians, Sacrificio: Who Betrayed Che Guevara?, Surplus: Terrorized into Being Consumers, Gitmo and Videocracy.Videocracy has gone on to win awards at Toronto Film Festival, Sheffield...

 coined the phrase The Evilness of Banality to describe the cultural phenomenon of Berlusconismo. Thus making a word play on Hanna Arendt's Banality of Evil

Banality of Evil

Banality of evil is a phrase coined by Hannah Arendt and incorporated in the title of her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. It describes the thesis that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or...

.

Soon after its theatrical premiere in Sweden, the film was shown at the 66th Venice International Film Festival

66th Venice International Film Festival

The 66th annual Venice Film Festival held in Venice, Italy, was opened on September 2, 2009 by Baarìa - La porta del vento. International competition jury, led by Ang Lee, awarded Leone d'Oro to Lebanon...

 where it gained massive attention. The trailer for the film has been banned by most Italian television broadcasters.

Videocracy uses the theme tune to Silvio Berlusconi's presidential campaign and now party theme, Meno male che Silvio c'è! (loosely translated as Thank God for Silvio!). When first hearing it Videocracy's director Erik Gandini

Erik Gandini

Erik Gandini is an Italian- Swedish film director, producer and writer.He has made several films including: Amerasians, Sacrificio: Who Betrayed Che Guevara?, Surplus: Terrorized into Being Consumers, Gitmo and Videocracy.Videocracy has gone on to win awards at Toronto Film Festival, Sheffield...

 thought it was satire. .

Videocracy has won awards at Toronto Film Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest, the Golden Graal awards and the Tempo Documentary Award 2010. Videocracy has been widely distributed internationally, released theatrically in the USA, UK, Holland, France, Poland, Sweden among other. In Italy where it opened in 90 theaters across the country on the weekend of September 4th 2009, Videocracy became 4th in the Box Office rankings.

Plot

The veline phenomenon is explained. We meet young mechanic Ricky who tries to become a TV star, but complains that it is more difficult for a man. TV agent Lele Mora admiringly says that Berlusconi resembles Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

. Paparazzo Fabrizio Corona

Fabrizio Corona

Fabrizio Corona is an Italian photographer, television and media personality who made his debut as an actor in 2010.-Career:Corona was born in Catania, Sicily to a family of journalists, the son of Vittorio and Gabriella Corona...

 takes embarrassing photographs of celebrities, and asks them for money to not publicize them. He explains that he is a new version of Robin Hood

Robin Hood

Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....

: he steals from the rich, but keeps the money to himself. When he was convicted for extortion, it made him a greater celebrity, and he is now cashing in on this. He is shown full-frontally naked taking a shower.

External links

• Official website with trailer
• Videocracy, a review by the Wu Ming
  Wu Ming
  Wu Ming is a pseudonym for a group of Italian authors formed in 2000 from a subset of the Luther Blissett community in Bologna.In their pre-Wu Ming days, the group wrote the novel Q ....
  
  collective.
• http://filmmakermagazine.com/directorinterviews/2010/02/erik-gandini-videocracy.html
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jun/23/videocracy-review
• http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/movies/12videocracy.html?em
• http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/film/82822/videocracy-film-review