Alessandra Ferrini / Uk, Italy / 26’ / 2024

The essay-film “Gaddafi in Rome: Anatomy of a Friendship” investigates the diplomatic relationship between the two ‘strongmen’ Silvio Berlusconi and Muammar Gaddafi, through the dissection of an iconic image of Gaddafi’s first visit to Rome in 2009. In this image, a seemingly friendly handshake is contrasted by a black-and-white picture pinned to Gaddafi’s uniform. Taken in 1931, it portrays the capture of Omar al-Mukhtar, the leader of the anticolonial resistance in Libya against the Italian occupation. Standing as a reminder of the indelibility of colonial violence, the film considers Gaddafi’s gesture as the ‘inciting incident’ that triggered a series of contestations and resolutions during the meeting in Rome. “Gaddafi in Rome: Anatomy of a Friendship” literally and metaphorically dissects a century-long history of (neo)colonial relations to shed light on the Treaty on Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation between Italy and Libya. Firstly signed by the two leaders in 2008, this Treaty has sealed the faith of the migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Libya, leading to gross human rights violations, immense suffering and deaths.

Alessandra Ferrini
Alessandra Ferrini is a London-based artist-researcher, working across moving images, installation, and performance-lecture. Her three-channel video installation Gaddafi in Rome: Notes for a Film was the recipient of the Maxxi Bvlgari Prize 2022 (the most prestigious contemporary art award in Italy) and, in 2017, it won the London Film Festival’s Experimenta Pitch Award. More recently, her two-channel video installation Gaddafi in Rome: Anatomy of a Friendship has been featured in the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. Previously her work has been screened and exhibited internationally, including at: 5th Casablanca Biennal (2023), Køs Museum of Art in Public Spaces (Denmark, 2022-23), Maxxi Museum of 21st Century Art (2022), MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art Thessaloniki (2021), Open City Documentary Film Festival (2020), Royal Anthropological Film Festival (2020, 2017), Manifesta13 Paralléles du Sud (Marseille 2020), Sharjah Film Platform (2019), Istanbul Biennal collateral (at Depo, 2019), 2nd Lagos Biennal (2019), Manifesta12 Film Programme (Palermo 2018), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin 2018, 2020-2022), 6th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition (2018). Ferrini works with moving images, performance-lecture, and installation to investigate the enduring legacy of Italian colonialism and fascism across the Mediterranean. She holds a practice-based PhD in filmmaking, from the University of the Arts London.