An Italian arts official has denounced the Venice Film Festival as “decadent” and an effort to maintain “a factitious, racist and snobbish leftist culture.” As reported by Agence France Presse, the French news agency, on Thursday, Junior Culture Minister Vittorio Sgarbi and other members of the current Italian government were conspicuously absent from the opening gala for the festival. However, the AFP reported, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi–the country’s biggest media mogul in his own right–is likely to attend the festival’s closing ceremony on Sept. 8.
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