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Italy actors stage protest over arts funding cuts
2005-10-15
ROME - Oscar-winner Roberto Benigni led Italian actors, artists and directors on Friday in a protest against the government's plan to cut state funding of the arts by 35 percent."To cut dreams is difficult, but they have managed to do it," Benigni, the actor and director whose poignant Holocaust film "Life is Beautiful" won an Oscar for best foreign film in 1998, told a crowd of Italy's most famous stage and screen artists. A protest that began in a Rome cinema overflowed on to a square, where the artists were joined by thousands of supporters. It coincided with a day-long national strike by arts workers that shut down theatres, cinemas and movie production. Italy's draft 2006 budget, approved by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right cabinet last month, will reduce arts funding by 160 million euros as part of broader cuts of 11.5 billion euros. The cuts will affect the performing arts across the board -- from circuses and feature film production to performances at Milan's La Scala opera. Some say they could even force the cancellation of the Venice film festival. "It's a swindle. This is devastating not least because the arts are one of the few great things that Italy has to offer," said Christian de Sica, an actor and son of Italy's post-war neo-realist director Vittorio de Sica. Placards portrayed media tycoon Berlusconi, who faces a general election next spring, as a devil. One read: "An ignorant populace is easier to govern." Some in the crowd said Berlusconi, who owns Italy's largest private television network, would force traditional cultural venues such as museums, cinemas and theatres to close. "This is the culmination of what started 20 years ago when Berlusconi bought into television," said Roman actor Francesco Martinelli. "This is the beginning of the end. Culture teaches people to think. Without it they are easier to manipulate." Workers at Berlusconi's cinema chain and his Milan theater joined the strike, which forced a delay to the release of Benigni's new film "The Tiger and the Snow," about the Iraq war. At least one big name shunned the protest. Director Franco Zeffirelli, a member of Berlusconi's party, said Italy needed U.S.-style private financing in order to squeeze out hangers-on and focus on talent. "Italian governments, including this one, have unfortunately perpetuated the horror of financing the many liars and fraudsters in Italian cinema and theater," he told the newspaper Corriere della Sera. Reuters
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