From Willy Monteiro to the Achille Lauro affair, Rai doc tackles the 20th century in prime time

2023-09-08 18:36:39

Time.news – Offer to the viewer “an opportunity to gain greater awareness of events not so much to the attention of the daily news but instead still very incisive today to define the Italian situation on the international scene”. This is the objective, Fabrizio Zappi, director of Rai documentaries, explains to Time.news, of an autumn cycle of programs between September and October, eight titles in total, produced by Rai documentaries and shown every Friday in prime time on Rai 3. Three of these titles also landed in the Author’s Days section of the 80th Venice Film Festival.

The choice of themes ranging from the Willy Monteiro case to the Black September of the ‘Achille Lauro’ affair “falls within our public service mission, in which the establishment of the documentary section within Rai is a cornerstone”, underlines Zappi. Already last 27 June, with this in mind, for the anniversary of that massacre, Rai had proposed the documentary on Ustica which was also awarded by the public in Bologna. The topic has come to the attention of public opinion in recent days, after the statements of the former undersecretary of the time Giuliano Amato to Repubblica.

“We embody the public service by carrying out this function of bringing to light and accurately reconstructing crucial events of yesterday to also understand today – reiterates the manager – each documentary is a piece of this reconstruction of our recent history“. It is no coincidence that the second title, broadcast on 15 September, is ‘1985 Mediterranean alarm’, dedicated to what happened between September and October almost forty years ago, written and directed by Giovanni Filippetto, “the portrait of a geopolitical framework of an era in which the Mediterranean was central and crucial“.

Rai’s new season of documentary programming therefore starts tonight with an investigation, an in-depth analysis by the author (the writer Aurelio Picca) on an affair that has turned the spotlight on the suburbs, in particular on Colleferro and its surroundings, three years ago, which arrives almost close to the third anniversary of the boy’s death. We continue with ‘1985 Mediterranean alarm’; and we continue between the Four Days of Naples, the first city that managed to free itself from the Germans; the Tortora case; the figure of Enrico Mattei, just to name a few.

“For us, this presence in Venice is an honor – explains Zappi – we interpret it as a recognition of the quality of Rai’s television offering which finds consensus among film critics”. As had already happened with the Nastro d’argento from the film journalists union for the project on Ennio Flaiano. “A few years ago, in 2020, Rai took the decision to create a documentary section to produce and acquire specific materials for television – says the general director – Rai cinema instead produces cinematographic productions. Ours are separate, targeted, not there is competition but rather collaboration. We are very clear about the diversity of destination, which is reflected in the diversity of linguistic registers and the diversity of theme choices”.

And the themes chosen and proposed in the coming weeks by public service TV “retrace in depth events which have also had an international impact and which see Italy as a positive protagonist. I believe that our series of documentaries offers a glimpse, with a level of excavation absolutely superior to what is possible in the news, on crucial events of the 20th century, to better understand Italy today, allowing us to build a collective memory. Each documentary is a piece in the reconstruction of our recent history” , concludes Zappi.