Mussolini's granddaughter wants "insulting" Romanian film seized

Sep 4, 2009, 13:25 GMT

Venice, Italy - The granddaughter of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini wants to stop the screening of a film which denounces the xenophobic treatment of immigrants in Italy newsreports said Friday.

Alessandra Mussolini is disparagingly referred to as a 'sow' in the film.

Mussolini is seeking legal damages and possibly the seizure of the Romanian film, Francesca, which screened at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday.

In one scene an elderly Romanian man tries to persuade his daughter, the film's title character, to abandon her dream of emigrating to Italy and warns her that '(Alessandra)Mussolini is a sow who wants to kill all the Romanians.'

'A generic insult is one thing, but this sort of tone must not be used, whether it is for art or not for art,' Mussolini, a parliamentarian in Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi's conservative People of Freedom party, was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency.

Director Bobby Paunescu, defended his decision to include the words in the film which denounces the xenophobia directed towards Romanian immigrants in Italy, especially in the wake of the 2007 rape and murder of an housewife in Rome by a Romanian man.

At the time 'Mussolini said that Romanians have the urge to commit rape in their DNA, which is a crazy thing,' Paunescu was quoted as saying by the Venice-based daily Il Gazzettino.

'It is a statement for which the granddaughter of the famous Duce must assume her responsibilities,' he added.

Francesca garnered loud applause during its public screening in Venice where it is not running in the official competition, but has been included in the Orizzonti (Horizons) section.

The Venice Film Festival runs from September 2 to 12.