All language subtitles for Out.of.the.Shadows.Awaking.Italys.Past.2024.720p.WEBRip.x264-JFF

Italy 2024, where the battles
of the past still smoulder.

Are you a fascist?

If you ask me like that,
I probably would say yes

but I have to complete the term
and say I'm a revolutionary.

A march in Milan for a
far-right student

killed almost 50 years ago
by the far-left.

You're seeing things in these
recent years that are

very similar to what happened
at the beginning of the regime.

The years of violent clashes
between fascists

and anti-fascists have gone,

but the words and the
polarisation live on.

Being anti-fascism in Italy
means be a violent person

who shut the door
to all others.

Competing narratives in the
country that created fascism...

The Mussolini calendar.

You said this is the most
sold calendar in Italy?

..and still allows
its sympathisers.

As it draws to a close,
the finale...

..with a chilling throwback to
Italy's dictatorship decades.

ALL: Presente!

Presente!

Presente!

These kinds of demonstrations
with the fascist salutes happen

across the country
year in, year out.

The state allows them to take
place and society somehow

seems to tolerate them.

I want to find out why, and why
some of the images associated

with the dark chapters
of Italy's past

still infuse the present.

Presente!

For the hardcore believers,
a return to where it,

or rather he, began.

The small town of Predappio
in north-east Italy,

the birthplace of Benito
Mussolini, the country's

fascist dictator, assassinated
in 1945 after a ruthless

20-year rule.

Every year on the anniversary
of his death

the faithful gather
to honour him.

Not for them the
established narrative

of his reign of terror.

Down the road, Mussolini merch.

From the traditional
to the tacky,

an extraordinary world
of dictatorship kitsch.

Can you imagine an equivalent
place existing in Germany

selling Hitler and Nazi
paraphernalia?

It just wouldn't happen.
This is extraordinary.

It's Mussolini marketing,
and it sells.

Then it begins.

Part funeral procession,
part military parade.

A pilgrimage to his
resting place.

BELL TOLLS

They're called to attention.

And then silence
for their victim.

They file in towards his tomb.

No.

We're not welcome.

ARCHIVE: In Milan, Mussolini
made an important statement...

It's a salute deriving
from ancient Rome,

adopted by the fascists
and passed on to the Nazis.

Benito Mussolini, nicknamed
"Il Duce" or "The Leader",

swept to power in 1922,

beginning two decades of
totalitarian rule

marked by a brutal repression
of opponents,

concentration camps
and invasions abroad.

He came by armoured train
for the meeting

with Signor Mussolini.

Anti-Semitic laws persecuted
Jews, worsening after Italy's

wartime alliance with
Hitler's Germany.

..from Germany, unless he
wanted something.

After the war, a neo-fascist
party was allowed to form

and figures from the Mussolini
era filled state institutions.

The party remained sidelined
until Silvio Berlusconi

brought it into his coalition,
legitimising the extreme.

Today, the blackshirt salutes
fill various yearly tributes.

ALL: Presente!

They say it's historical
commemoration.

Critics call it
glorification of past crimes.

ALL: Presente!

Italy's post-war constitution
has one article that bans

reforming the fascist party.

The subsequent so-called
Scelba law forbids groups

pursuing the same
anti-democratic aims,

glorifying fascism, using
violence to do so,

or promoting the suppression
of freedom.

But it's only been used twice
to dissolve fringe movements,

and it leaves it up to judges
to decide whether acts

like the salute are a crime.

Many think the law could've
been used after this -

protests over Covid
restrictions that attacked

Italy's main trade union.

It was seen as out of the
fascist playbook,

since the unions were targeted
under Mussolini.

Forza Nuova took part that day
- a fringe, hard-right party

still not banned.

THEY CHANT

Hi. Wow. Well, this is...

Luca Castellini, its deputy
leader, was jailed

for the violence but
freed pending appeal.

..the flag up here of the
Donetsk People's Republic.

Esatto, Donbas.

Donbas in Ukraine, the part
of Ukraine taken by Russia

or claimed by Russia.

The Mussolini calendar.

You said this is the most
sold calendar in Italy?

"We are fascists."

"A call to arms."
"We are fascists."

And then up here, this is the,
of course,

the flag of the old...

..fascist republic.

This was also
Luca Castellini...

CHEERS

..as head of Verona's Ultras,
Italy's hardcore football fans,

long a breeding ground of
extremism.

He's been banned from the
stadium after saying

a black player could
never be truly Italian.

Do you think it's acceptable
to joke about Adolf Hitler?

Would you say
the same thing again?

You would repeat
the same thing?

What would you say to
a Jewish person,

an Italian Jewish person,
who has lost,

who lost their family
to the Holocaust?

The Scelba law in the Italian
constitution

prohibits what it calls
the praising, the threatening,

or the use of violence,
and says that that

could allow a group
to be banned, dissolved.

Isn't that exactly what
Forza Nuova did against CGdL,

against the trade union?
Did they not use violence?

Did you not use violence,
you used threats,

you targeted that union?

No government has cracked down,

but some feel Prime Minister
Giorgia Meloni

is even less likely to do so.

She started in politics
in the neo-fascist youth,

interviewed aged 19
by French TV.

The party she formed,
Brothers of Italy,

has its roots in post-war
fascism, keeping the same

tricolour flame logo.

But she has moderated and moved
it away from the far-right

to the mainstream.

She's topping polls before the
upcoming European elections,

an example for Europe's
nationalist politicians

hoping she'll lead a new
right-wing wave -

and hoping to emulate her
success in their countries.

And on the past,
she had this message.

The Italian right has handed
fascism over history

for decades now, unambiguously
condemning the suppression

of democracy

and the ignominious
anti-Jewish laws.

And yet, overt political
extremism has continued

to fester and flourish here...

..seemingly without punishment.

A Nazi birthday cake for a
senior Forza Nuova figure

drew little public reaction.

But Meloni's supporters say
the issue is with the way

in which anti-fascists have
protested over the years,

both in clashes with the other
side and with police.

And so, while the Prime
Minister has never directly

called herself anti-fascist,

one of her oldest political
allies says it's a nuance

in Italy that needs
to be understood.

Being anti-fascist during the
fascism was a very brave act,

brave for freedom,
brave for democracy.

But after the falling of
the fascism,

being anti-fascist means

violence, means a lot of
young students killed.

This is why she's very clear -

I always condemned the fascism
every day of my life,

but please don't tell me to
share what the anti-fascists

did after the falling
of fascism.

If somebody looks from outside
and they see Italy in 2024

with hundreds of people in the
main second city of Italy

doing the fascist salute,
how do you think that looks?

If you are commemorating, er...

..um, a person dead,

even if he was a fascist,

this is not a crime, because...
But should it be?

..being a neo-fascist
is another thing.

Should it be a crime to use
that gesture,

to use the fascist salute in
the middle of an Italian city?

No, no, I don't think so.
You are fascist

if you want to reintroduce
the fascism in your country,

not if you make the
fascism salute.

That is the Roman salute.

Because the fascism is only 20
years in the Italian history.

Italian history is really
bigger than 20 years

of fascism.

Every, every Prime Minister
goes to the most important

Italian monument to
say every year

that we condemn the fascism.

But more than this
is an obsession.

And so one side of Italy sees
fascism and its threat

as a ghost haunting
the present -

the other as a fantasy
whipped up by the left.

Geographically, socially,
politically, Italy is divided,

but it's also split in
the historical narrative

people believe and are fed.

Across Italy, the past,
politically speaking,

lives on. Historical battles
still part of the present.

We've come to Bologna, which
has always been at the centre

of the fight against fascism.

Here are the names and faces
of the partisans that died

defending this city from the
fascists in the 1940s.

But then it went on to 1980

with Italy's worst
terror attack,

bombings at the train station
here in Bologna by neo-fascists

that killed 85 people.

And so fascism and anti-fascism
have always been at the heart

of this city's, this country's,
political lexicon.

We're seeing things in
these recent years

that are very similar to what
happened at the beginning of

the regime, and at the
beginning of fascism

a century ago.

Attacks on freedom of press,
censorship, um,

freedom for the LGBTQI
community,

attacks on the liberty and
freedom of women

to determine what they can do
on their own body.

So do you feel that the fight,
the anti-fascism fight,

is still relevant today?
Definitely.

I definitely believe
it's very relevant.

And I also see again, to
strike a parallel, the fact

that the far-right, not only in
Italy but all over the world,

is sort of trying to find a
scapegoat for people's

difficulties in everyday lives
by attacking the stranger,

the person who comes
from abroad, the migrant.

It's something similar
again to what was done

a century ago.
So to me, it's quite striking

as being very close
to fascism. You know,

a new form of fascism,
neo-fascism, in fact,

because it's again that same
sort of tactic -

I'll make you scared
of something

that's different to you.

It's that same sort of rhetoric
of many governments in power,

from Trump to Orban,
which really singles out

a lot of battles for social
justice or for civil rights

and says they're wrong.

In Germany, you could never
have somebody going and making

a public declaration of
support for Nazism.

You could never show
a swastika.

In Italy, there are groups
that exist, plenty of them.

These skinhead groups,
the far-right groups, you know,

the Roman salute. Why is this
all allowed to happen?

Germany in some ways sort of
had to address the past

because there was victors and
those who had lost the war.

Italy's role was a little
more ambiguous, right?

So, first with Hitler
and then surrendered.

And there's much to be said
about really grappling

with that legacy.

That legacy is still being
debated and dissected.

The next generation
learning about the wounds

of the past one.

History is weaponised
in a country

still not at peace
with its past.

Nostalgia given free rein.

Sugar coating the bitter
parts of collective memory.

The political extreme here
is perhaps small,

but they're outspoken,
they're permitted,

and some of their views are
seeping into the mainstream.

Camerata Benito Mussolini!

ALL: Presente!

My name is Roberto Fiore and
I'm the national secretary

of Forza Nuova.

I define myself as someone who
really, who has certainly got,

some ideas, some inspiration
by certain parts of fascism.

Are you a fascist?

If you ask me like that,
I probably would say yes,

but I have to complete the term
and say I'm a revolutionary.

Italy hasn't got the
intelligence and the courage

to say, well, OK, fascism was
good on this and this and that,

and maybe not good
in other things.

So as a reaction,

I really, I accept,

I don't refuse
the term of fascism.

But are you denying that
the fascist regime

was violent and criminal?
Yes, absolutely, I deny that.

Mussolini signed the racial
laws, I mean, he deported,

this was a regime that deported
Jews to death camps,

that outlawed the opposition,
that put political opponents

in internment camps.

Are you honestly saying that
you support those measures?

The internment camps are things
that happened with the war.

The Americans did it,
the Germans did it,

the Italians did it, and so on.

I'm talking about people
who were gassed,

who were shot,
who were exterminated

for their religion. Fascism has
never been accused of this.

I'm talking about fascism
as a regime.

Mussolini and all his ministers
have never been tried for this.

Do you believe that this
government in power in Italy

is occupying your political
space?

No, I believe that they are
freeing a lot of

the political space that we
are going to take. Why?

One of the main points
is immigration.

We have always
been against immigration.

Meloni has always been
against immigration,

sometimes with our same
tone and strength.

Now, immigrants last year,
this year,

have increased the number
of 50%.

Where do you think Italian
people are going to go

after this betrayal of, um,
original positions?

Your movement or a movement
like yours would not exist

and has been banned in Greece,
for example Golden Dawn,

in Germany it would
never exist.

You would never be able to use
the symbols and the slogans

that your party uses in a
country like Germany.

Why is that the case?

Because Germany has got
a bigger problem.

You think Germany's got the
problem rather than Italy?

No... Yes, because
freedom is freedom.

Neither victor nor vanquished.

Italy memorialises in a way
others do not.

The name, architecture and
gestures of the regime

allowed to live on.

What do you think,
we have to destroy everything?

This is the cancel culture
that we don't share.

The question is, does the
ideology itself survive?

I would say there is a silent
majority that would say

yes, yes, yes
on a lot of our ideas.

And is Italy the
laboratory of fascism,

once again a political
testing room?

What should be seen as a crime,
as apology of fascism,

is actually again
downplayed as,

oh, no, it's just nostalgic,
it's a tribute.

The worry here is not that
Italy's democracy per se

is under threat, but that
a governing party

which has not severed its
historical roots

still winks to that
support base.

And that speech, notions,
even policies once banished

are increasingly normalised.