Tommaso Montesano
07 May 2024
Ah, how wonderful it would be if Italy were like a (left-wing) film. What a beautiful country ours would truly be if politics took inspiration from the (left-wing) champions of the small screen. All militancy and (left-wing) struggles.
It may be a coincidence, but every time an appointment with the polls approaches, appeals to vote from actors and directors against the danger of the “right” appear. This year the opportunity was offered by the 69th edition of the David di Donatello. Those statuettes collected by Palazzina Laf by Michele Riondino and Io Capitano by Matteo Garrone sent Concita De Gregorio into ecstasy on Repubblica. Those stories that exude “sense of community”, “value of dissent”, “rights”, are the best Italy. Because they talk about “love and politics”, politics understood as “tension towards a common, shared and better horizon”. The sun of the future, in practice. So “high” compared to the vulgarity, it goes without saying, of yet another electoral campaign characterized by “dark brawls”; «personal ambitions»; “candidates armed with a rifle or in military uniform”. And “right-wing”, of course.
Yesterday, for example, Claudio Amendola also returned to talking about politics. A one-page interview in the press to say that this time even he, who has long withdrawn into himself, will return to voting for the Democratic Party. The moment, moreover, is serious. No, fascism has nothing to do with it. The magic formula now is “Orbán drift”. An updated version of the “fasci” of the seventies.
The actor and director makes it clear that he is handling the dossier: “I fear an intervention on the Constitution, like the premiership.” Which paves the way, precisely, for a presumed authoritarian outlet. The first piece fell into place: “This government is carrying out a frightening, almost brazen occupation of the media.”
Luckily, here is the “VIP help”, that now there is Elly. «Perhaps Schlein returns to saying something left-wing in a Morettian sense», concedes Amendola. The Roman actor breaks the deadlock: «This time I will vote for the Democratic Party. Yes, Schlein is an underdog within her party, he does left-wing things like going to Portella della Ginestra, I have expectations of her.”
No wonder: an actor must proselytize, explains Elio Germano in the same newspaper that hosts Amendola: «In the Constitution it is written that citizens are invited to participate in public life, therefore to engage in politics». And he, registered with the Anpi and fresh from the support given to Luigi de Magistris’s Popular Union in 2022, does it. With a fair amount of attention, here is the news in view of the European elections, for the Dems: «Happy for Schlein’s new PD».
Germano received the David di Donatello for best supporting actor in Palazzina Laf, the film about an Ilva worker for which his colleague Riondino obtained the statuette for best performance.
Riondino experienced a moment of political fame for a post in which he published an upside-down photo of the president of the Senate, Ignazio La Russa. Inevitable that in the interviews after the award a question concerned that episode.
«I don’t want to go back to the topic, let me enjoy this moment… Maybe it was imprudent», he tries to gloss over. There is no change of heart: «I reiterate what I said from the stage on May 1st: however you turn it, the photo remains the one, in its definitive immobility, to tell the story of our country today».
A photo, for the record, which portrays a young La Russa with other people next to a photo of Benito Mussolini and in front of a bouquet of flowers. But that is the past. The present is a busy Riondino, as a director, in the guise of federator of progressive forces: in Taranto, on the Ilva, «all the ideologies of a left that should speak the same language clash. I am proud to have sought dialogue.” A tip for Schlein.
