There are encounters capable of leaving their mark. As well as trips and missions which, undertaken as a profession, are never forgotten. It is from the mix of these two elements, contained in the very essence of photographic art, that the photojournalist from Villongo Maurizio Belometti has obtained the inspiration to propose an exhibition that intends to be a memory and a tribute at the same time.
«Without any partisan political connection or admixture», he is careful to specify in the introduction, given the title of the initiative «The world of Silvio Berlusconi» (open to visitors, with free entry, in the former church of Nigrignano in Sarnico this weekend, with inauguration tomorrow evening, Friday 14 June, at 8.30 pm). «What I intended to do, one year after the death of the Knight, is simply to remember him in the role of prime minister in one of the most intense and significant moments of his political mission, the G8 summit in L’Aquila in July 2009». 15 years have passed, but the large photographic panels, prepared for the occasion, restore the drama and meaning of those days intact; a week for the 500 photographers present, spent with the camera around their neck, ready to capture even the smallest detail, the most subtle expression of the Greats of the Earth.
«Berlusconi, but with him, for example, also the president of the United States, Barack Obama, so young and pleasantly informal – recalls Belometti -, always ready to smile. Of course, it wasn’t easy to elbow through the thousands of people following the event, but I also had the classic luck of finding myself in the right place at the right time.” Belometti, who inherited the race reporter genes from his father Ulisse (in particular the DNA of the resourcefulness of not stopping for anyone), he even managed to evade the very strict surveillance of the Libyan leader Gaddafi, immortalizing it a few meters away. Not only that, but he was one of the 15 photographers to receive accreditation, to witness every G8 event live. Including the tour that Berlusconi himself led through the rubble of the city which only a few months earlier, in April, had been gutted by the earthquake. The symbol of a country wounded in the soul to be told. «Perhaps the most iconic shot – remarks Belometti – is the one which sees the US president and Prime Minister Berlusconi seen from behind, while they look at the city’s seriously damaged Palace of Justice. A photograph worth a thousand words. Obama himself, at the end of the summit, wrote to the inhabitants of L’Aquila: “We will always have these places and their people in our hearts.” Years later I can say that as far as I’m concerned it was exactly like that.”
