It’s rare that this monkey feels the need to defend Sig. Silvio Berlusconi, but reading this week’s Lettera dall’Italia in Internazionale, written by film critic Deborah Young, I have the unsettling urge to rally to Berluska’s defence.

Young, on contemporary Italian film making writes:

“The worrying thing is that the last spaces for freedom of expression are closing. Even in the cinema, a voice traditionally democratic.”

While citing George Clooney’s Good night and good luck and Iranian film The forbidden chapter as prime examples of films that take on taboo subjects, she continues:

“So why is it that Italian directors are silent? Notwithstanding their famous left-wing anti-Berlusconismo, lately they’ve done little to trouble the sweet dreams of their leader. The motives aren’t difficult to find. There are no longer funds for projects that are critical towards the government”.

While there is certainly less official funding for films in Italy at the moment, this is surely more down to the bleak economic climate rather than some plan to stifle the last space open to freedom of expression*.

The real reason, with the notable exception of Sabina Guzzanti’s fine documentary Viva Zapatero, that film-makers have not made films specifically critical of Berlusconi, or for example of Italian foreign policy, lies not in censorship but in artistic sensibility.

There have been plenty of films made during Berlusconi’s tenure, that cast a reflective and disparaging eye over the political class of which Berlusconi is but the most notable and current example.

Fame Chimica set in the peripheria in Milan has as its protagonists the new class of ‘precari‘, workers on short-term contracts with no security or future. A residents group led by a loud mouthed racist mirrors much of the immigration policy ushered in by Berlusconi’s government. It’s not a film strictly about Berlusconi, but is certainly a bitter look at the real effects of government policies.

Lavorare con lentezza> is set in 1977 Bologna, around the pirate radio station Alice. Amongst its themes are the regulation of information. Because it’s not set in 21st century Italy doesn’t mean the film is without significance for current day voters.

I giorni dell’abbandono by Roberto Faenza tells the story of a happily married woman who is abandoned by her husband, and loses her meaning, her context. An internal drama that could be set anywhere in the world, at any time? Perhaps, but under a government that has done little to further women’s rights, and has given precious little support to its Minister for equal opportunities, one of the two female ministers, the film has found a particular context making it a favourite amongst cinema goers.

Private by Saverio Costanzo, an Italian film about Palestine and Israel, which was chosen as Italy’s entry for the Oscars but rejected by the Academy as the actors involved were not Italian, is scarcely complimentary to Italian foreign policy and its almost blind support for the government of Israel and its military.

The truth is, I suspect, that much as it may pain Berlusconi to discover it, for Italian film-makers he is but one small (and passing)element in the society about which they wish to tell stories.

*The idea that cinema is a fundamentally free space that gleefully attacks taboo topics is a chimera. Films are financed by large and conservative groups who wish to make their money back, preferably with what could be considered an immorally large profit. Sure, there are films that are important social commentary, but they are in the minority – in every film-making country.