DETASSIS. Contentious incident.
We fell in love with Italian films after watching Federico Fellini’s “8 ½” in college. Early this month, our love affair with Italian cinema was rekindled when we attended the second MovieMov Italian fest.
We were present when Italian Sen. Goffredo Bettini talked about Marco Tullio Giordana’s “Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy.” He recalled, “In 1969, students in Paris and Rome took to the streets to complain about their way of life. The world was changing—and they wanted freedom!”
At the time, bombings were common in Italy, but the worst hit was a bank in Milan, where 17 people were killed. The film focused on Giuseppe Pinelli (Pierfrancesco Favino), one of the suspects, and police commissioner Luigi Calabresi (Valerio Mastandrea). Thereafter, Pinelli jumped off a window and died, for which Calabresi was blamed by the public!
Mastermind
Piera Detassis, editor in chief of Ciak, Italy’s leading film magazine, and former artistic director of the International Rome Film Festival, shared her thoughts about the contentious incident. Who was the mastermind of the bombings?
Detassis replied, “We still remember the incident, but the circumstances surrounding it remains a mystery. We don’t know exactly what happened—if Pinelli was pushed by the police or not! What’s clear is that Calabresi wasn’t in the room when it happened. His son eventually wrote two books about him. The so-called ‘truth’ is different now.”
MovieMov flew in Detassis with Italian actors to talk to students and filmmakers. Bettini plans to screen Filipino films in Rome next year.