Draquila: Italy Trembles

A satirical documentary about what happened after the earthquake that wrecked L’Aquila in 2009. Sabina Guzzanti examines how the Civil Protection agency answered the disaster and presents it as a body working as an extension of the government and bending the law. Silvio Berlusconi and Guido Bertolaso, who headed the agency, are the film’s real targets; Guzzanti argues that the prime minister, whose polling was falling before the earthquake, deliberately slowed the rehousing of the homeless in order to turn the catastrophe to political advantage. These are the film’s claims, not a verdict. It was shown out of competition at Cannes in 2010 and the Italian government boycotted the festival, with the culture minister Sandro Bondi announcing that he would not attend.