FULLY BOOKED Screening – Videocracy

Videocracy is the story of a TV revolution that would forever change a political system. In 1976 a quiz show began on Italian television in which housewives would undress after contestants answered questions correctly, a simple premise but one that appears to have shaped decades of Italian culture.

Italian-born, Swedish-based director Erik Gandini takes us on a tour of the world of Italian TV, and the repercussions of an industry largely controlled by their president Silvio Berlusconi.

Videocracy guides through a celebrity driven culture using three tour guides each with their own place within the industry, Mechanic Ricky Canevali who dreams of fame; Lele Mora, Italy’s primo TV agent  and Fabrizio Corona, a paparazzi who bribes celebrities to buy back unflattering photos of themselves.

An insight into the dark side of Italy’s TV culture in which the key to power is the possession of the image and the man who has kept control and domination for over three decades, Silvio Berlusconi.

Directed by Erik Gandini
85 mins
2009

”Videocracy is the power of image over the society”

Wikipedia.org

Erik Gandini’s Videocracy is an intriguing, mordant look at the world of Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi: an acrid Dolce Vita for the modern day… a dreamy, mesmeric and highly disturbing psychogeography of 21st century Italy, or perhaps a meandering anthropological study of a disfunctional cult, ruled by a thin-skinned, self-pitying lader.

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian