"Viva Zapatero"

Went to see the documentary film "Viva Zapatero", which is about the trials and tribulations of a very funny Italian comedienne and satirist called Sabina Guzzanti. Her TV show RAIot (pronounced "riot") was taken off the air after ridiculing Silvio Berlusconi, who just happens to own half of the Italian media and control the rest. She got her own back by interviewing various politicians and journalists for this film, as well as putting her satirical sketches on in theatres all over Italy, which are also shown in the film. It starts with a sketch, pictured here, between her, as Berlusconi (amazing make-up job!) and Rory Bremner, a British impressionist, as Tony Blair: RB is also in one of my favourite current BBC TV shows, "Mock the Week"- which would certainly be pulled off the air in Italy! The film contains extracts from some quite ferocious satirical TV shows from England, France ("Peuple Fiction", a take-off of Pulp Fiction in which Chirac gets shot), the Netherlands and the U.S. (take-off of "We are the World", which can be seen on the official site of the film) - but not Spain, despite the film's title, which refers to the Spanish prime minister maintaining the independence of Spanish TV. I can only agree with this review, and nominate Sabina Guzzanti as woman of the year, she's a very courageous lady as well as a great comedienne or as she puts it, "buffone".