Film trailer ban backfires

Italy's state television channel refused to show a trailer for a film that blames Silvio Berlusconi for creating a frivolous media culture filled with "half-naked women" and chauvinistic images (he owns three commercial Italian TV channels) - a move the movie's director interpreted as straight censorship.

But the ban by the network RAI on screening the clip for Videocracy - showing at the Venice Film Festival - has backfired and led to a surprising uptake in interest in the documentary.

Videocracy is among the most contentious films to be shown at the two-week event.

RAI wrote to the director, Erik Gandini, stating that the film was "offensive" to Berlusconi's reputation.

The advert showed scantily-attired women and statistics claiming that Italy had a low press freedom rating.

Berlusconi's company, Mediaset, which runs Italy's private TV stations, also declined to screen the trailer.

Since then, requests from cinemas in Italy to obtain a print of the film have shot up from 35 to 70 venues, leading to many hundreds more screenings.

"The ban indicated the level of tension in Italy regarding everything that goes on TV," Gandini said.

"He [Berlusconi] runs three commercial channels in the country. In Italy, what does not exist on TV does not exist. For the last 30 years, Italy has been subjected very strongly to Berlusconi TV, which has a lot of semi-naked women and triviality. These things present themselves as harmless but it's a dangerous culture. Italian TV is very superficial and very male chauvinistic," he said.

- INDEPENDENT