Venice applauds Guzzanti's La Trattativa (The Negotiation)

Chilling satire about alleged State-Mafia negotiation

(ANSA) - Venice, September 3 - Screening out of competition at the 71st Venice Film Festival on Wednesday, La Trattativa (The Negotiation) by satirist Sabina Guzzanti got an enthusiastic reception with its mix of fiction and documentary, telling a chilling tale of corruption at the highest levels of the Italian State.

The movie purports to be a reconstruction of alleged secret negotiations the State entered into with the Sicilian Mob in a bid to stop a bombing campaign in the early 1990s that claimed the lives of crusading anti-Mafia magistrates, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, among many others. A trial into the alleged negotiation is ongoing in Sicily. An actress, writer and director, Guzzanti in the past endeared herself to critics of Silvio Berlusconi by lampooning the former premier, who in turn successfully sued her and allegedly got her thrown off the air in 2003.