The Smile of the Leader ( Il sorriso del capo )

The Smile of the Leader (DVD) (*)

~~$23.99~~ $20.98

Original Title: Il sorriso del capo
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
Italian ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Italian ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
Italy ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
74 min + 57 min extras

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (1.78:1)

Special Features:
Cast/Crew Interview(s)
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Trailer(s)

Movie filmed in 2011 and produced in:
Italy ( Italy, Greece )

Directed By:
Marco Bechis

Written By:
Marco Bechis
Gigi Riva

Actors:
Benito Mussolini ..... Himself (archive footage)

Synopsis:

Using astounding footage from the Luce archives (newsreels, but also true films) Il sorriso del capo/The Smile of the Leader shows how propaganda works, presents everyday life in its most revealing details, and describes a country's "education". Marco Bechis explores the feeling of consensus: he tells us where it originates, what tools are used to spread it, how it is opposed. The thread running through the film is a voice, enigmatic until the end, narrating in the first person what it is like to grow up under fascism.

Every charismatic leader strategically plans to gain popularity by taking obsessive care of his own public image. He does so by exploiting the media power and the technologies available over different historical times. Benito Mussolini, the Italian "Duce", caught the great opportunity offered him by the most powerful, popular and beloved medium of the 20th century: the newly-born cinema. Guessing its potential, he founded the Istituto Luce in order to spread his own personality cult and create a "new man" in his own image, the secret dream of every dictatorship. Mussolini's propaganda experiment can be therefore considered as paradigmatic. The documentary film "The Smile of the Leader" is pure editing, based on the Istituto Luce Archive records. It is made exclusively out of the original audio --visual footage, every music of the soundtrack included. The most known clips about War are not included on purpose. The focus is on those records which are less-know and yet the most impressive and persuasive. The aim of the film is to show the mechanisms of consensus building, as main instrument of Populism; how the regime educated boys and girls to grow up as good fascist citizens; how a nation living in extreme poverty was persuaded to be crucial for the world's asset; how the people exalted the leader and his ideology.

This product was added to our catalog on Wednesday 18 November, 2015.