On Sunday 30 June at 10.10pm on Rai 5, the documentary “Reggio Emilia, centre of the world” will be broadcast for the first time, edited by Lucrezia Lo Bianco, with the declared aim of telling the story of the city of the Tricolour, removing it from the “shadow” of nearby Parma, Modena and Bologna, with which Reggio is often automatically associated in the collective imagination.
But, although the documentary has not yet been broadcast on TV, the premises do not seem good: “There is no shortage of excellence here”, we read in the presentation press release from the Rai press office (which lists a list of personalities from Reggio Emilia who have distinct in their area of expertise): “And music? Zucchero, Ligabue, Romolo Valli, Ivana Spagna, Orietta Berti, Max Collini, the Nomadi, the Cccp”.
Yes, you read and understood correctly, Romolo Valli, the actor after whom the important city theater was named, would have been a famous singer for Rai, on a par with Zucchero, Ligabue and Orietta Berti.
As for art, instead, the following are reported: “Ligabue, Fontanesi, Munari, Ghirri”. Too bad that Bruno Munari, considered one of the greatest protagonists of art and design and graphics of the twentieth century, is not a Reggio Emilia native at all, but rather a true Milanese, born and died in Milan.
“And again – continues the Rai preview – from here (we mean from Reggio obviously) come Prampolini, Dossetti, Roversi, Iotti, Malaguzzi, Nizzoli, Zavattini, Tondelli”. And here the names of political personalities, educationalists, intellectuals and writers mix together in a haphazard manner. The curiosity of the reader rests on the name of Nizzoli: who exactly is it? In Reggio Emilia (if we talk about politics) we remember Arrigo Nizzoli who was secretary of the PCI after the war and who was convicted for the murder of Arnaldo Vischi, whose assassination became a national case. Let’s imagine it’s not the same person. Or there is Arneo Nizzoli, famous restaurateur from the Bassa, recently deceased (who was responsible for the invention of the ‘Maialata’), friend of Zavattini, Gianolio and other personalities. Will he be that Nizzoli? Or much more likely we are talking about Marcello Nizzoli, from San Rocco di Boretto, an industrial designer who worked in the technical advertising office of Olivetti in Ivrea. The video will make this clear.
In the Sala del Tricolore (by the way, did anyone commission or pay for this service?), last June, the preview of the documentary ‘Reggio Emilia, center of the world’ was presented, conceived and produced by Rai 5 and broadcast tonight as part of the program ‘Across the river and into the trees’.
The meeting, open to the public, was attended by the mayor of Reggio Emilia Marco Massari, the director of Rai 5 Piero Alessandro Corsini and the author and director of the documentary, Lucrezia Lo Bianco.
The hope then remains that at the end of the first viewing, the ‘inaccuracies’, to put it mildly, have been corrected.
