“September 6 was an echo of Mussolini,” Mark Cousins Talks Fascism Documentary ‘March On Rome’ – Venice Q&A + First Clip

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Fascism – its roots, legacy and contemporary manifestations – is a leitmotif running throughout the 79th Venice Film Festival as Italy marks the centenary of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s fateful power grab in 1922, in an era when totalitarian leaders are once again on the rise.Northern Irish, Edinburgh-based filmmaker Mark Cousin’s essay documentary March On Rome – which opens parallel section Giornate degli Autori on Wednesday (August 31) – offers an insightful cinematic primer into the events leading up to Mussolini’s forced appointment as Italian prime minister on October 31, 1922.Opening with an extract of an interview with Donald Trump in which he openly quotes Mussolini, the film also provocatively connects the actions of latter-day populist leaders with the legacy of Italian fascism.The infamous 1922 March on Rome grew out of a fascist rally in Naples on October 24 at which Mussolini declared: “Either the government will be given to us, or we will seize it by marching on Rome.” Four days later, thousands of his black shirt supporters set off for the Italian capital in an act that would pave the way for Mussolini’s rise to power.Based on painstaking research by Italian director Tony Saccucci, who takes a co-writer credit, the documentary takes its cue from Umberto Paradisi’s 1923 propaganda film A Noi, which was made with the support of the Fascist Party.The work suggests the march was an orderly, triumphant affair that packed out the streets of Rome.

With the help of Saccucci’s research, Cousins demonstrates how Paradisi used tight framing to hide the lack of crowds, and re-shot scenes after bad weather washed out the arrival of the marchers in Rome.Cousins intercuts extracts from other films capturing the