Moretti
MILAN -- Helmer Nanni Moretti and the Italian government, led by its media tycoon Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, are fighting over one of the most famous theaters in Rome.
Moretti, director of Cannes Palme d'Or winner "The Son's Room" and one of Italy's most influential Leftist intellectuals, is opposing a government move to close his Cinema Sacher in the Roman district of Trastevere, which screens arthouse pics and hosts film festivals.
The theater (named after the famous chocolate cake made in Wien and loved by Moretti) risks being seized by the official owner of the building, the State Agency for Monopolies, after Francesco Stradella, a member of the Parliament in the ranks of Berlusconi's center-right Forza Italia party, claimed that not only had Moretti not been paying the rent on it regularly, but that he had used the theater for "political gatherings."
"A personality who gives scornful opinions on everything and everybody is using a facility belonging to the state for his personal interest," Stradella said.
Vice Minister for Economics Maria Teresa Armosino, also a member of Forza Italia, said the government had started legal proceedings to recover the building.
Moretti's partner and producer, Angelo Barbagallo, said their company, Sacher Films, had regularly paid rent since 1991 to ECR, a company that has a contract with the state agency and had sublet the theater to Sacher Films. Barbagallo also denied the Sacher theater had been used for "political gatherings."
The National Assn. of Film Authors, ANEC, has launched a campaign to "save from destruction a theater which is unique in Europe" and has called on all Italian cinema and culture associations to join forces and promote national and international initiatives.
ANEC said, "It's very clear to everybody that the punishing measure" and proposed closure of Cinema Sacher had political motivations.
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