An investigative documentary titled “All the Evils in the World” about the murder of Giulio Regeni, a leftist Italian graduate student who was tortured and killed by Egyptian secret police in Cairo in 2016, has sparked outrage in Italy over the fact that it was denied government funding by a committee appointed by the right-wing government.
The documentary, directed by Simone Manetti and produced by Italy’s Ganesh Productions and Fandango directed by Domenico Procacci, reconstructs the ongoing search for the judicial truth about Regeni’s kidnapping, torture and murder. Mr Regeni was in Cairo for his PhD research at the University of Cambridge on Egypt’s independent trade unions, which operate outside the Egyptian state trade union federation. On February 3, 2016, his brutally murdered body was found in a ditch beside the Cairo-Alexandria highway.
Reports said that before his death, Mr. Regeni was under surveillance in Egypt on suspicion of being a spy. Egyptian authorities have repeatedly denied any involvement in Regeni’s death.
In parliament on Thursday, Italy’s Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli rejected accusations of government interference or even censorship after the commission failed to provide retrospective support for the recently completed document. Three members of the government-appointed committee also resigned in protest.
“I am morally and ideologically opposed to the selection committee’s decision on the documentary film about Regeni,” Giuri said in response to a question from the opposition Democratic Party about why funding for Regeni was cut off.
Meanwhile, Culture Undersecretary Lucia Borgonzoni, who oversees the country’s film sector, said she expected members of the government-appointed committee that refused to fund the film to resign.
The title of “All the Evil in the World” is taken from the words of Regeni’s mother, who saw traces of her son’s body in a Cairo mortuary.As the synopsis states, the film tells the story of the murdered student from the perspective of his parents, Claudio Regeni and Paola Defendi, who “challenged the military dictatorship of (Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi) to uncover the truth.”
The document includes an exclusive interview with Alessandra Ballerini, the lawyer who assisted the Regeni family in the long legal battle that led to the trial of four Egyptian national security agents being held in Italy without the defendants present. The trial is expected to begin in 2024, with a verdict expected later this year.
Following the media controversy surrounding the denial of public funding to All the Evil in the World, the doc will be re-released by Fandango after an event screening in Italian cinemas in early February. Fandango and independent exhibition company Circuito Cinema will release the doc on 60 screens in Italy this weekend.
“The best response to those desperate for this documentary to become a one-sided (political) battle is to return the film to theaters,” Fandango President Procacci said in a statement.
The doc, which is being sold by Fandango Sales, is now also scheduled to be screened at more than 70 universities in Italy, and will have a special screening at the European Parliament in Brussels on May 5th.
