'Sexist' Berlusconi faces the backlash of Italian women's anger...

Towards the end of her career as one of Italy's most famous and loved leading ladies, the Roman actress Anna Magnani instructed her make-up artist not to conceal the lines and wrinkles on her face. "Leave them all there," she said. "I spent a lifetime earning them."

Magnani is now celebrated as a role model for a new generation of Italian feminists, galvanised by sex scandals involving prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, and a daily diet of sexist imagery in the media. Archive footage of Magnani's bon mot appears in a short documentary which has become a word-of-mouth sensation online in Italy. Il Corpo delle Donne, or The Body of Women, is an acid critique of the routine sexism that pervades commercial Italian television.

In the film Magnani's humorous dignity is contrasted with clip after clip featuring semi-naked showgirls and Botoxed presenters, all enduring programme formats designed to reveal as much flesh as is permissible at prime time, with a coruscating commentary by director Lorella Zanardo. More than half a million viewers have so far watched Il Corpo delle Donne and last month the film was shown and discussed on one of the country's most popular talk shows. More...

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