Viva Zapatero!
2005 documentary film by Sabina Guzzanti
Viva Zapatero! is a 2005 documentary by Sabina Guzzanti telling her side of the story regarding the conflict with Silvio Berlusconi over a late-night TV political satire show broadcast on Rai 3.
The show, RAIot (a play on the name of the Italian state public TV: RAI, and the English word riot), lampooned prime minister Berlusconi. Since it was not considered a satirical show, but a political one, it was cancelled after the first episode.
Origin
Viva Zapatero! is titled after the famous "Viva Zapata!" and it also refers to the then Spanish Prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who, immediately after gaining power in Spain in April 2004, ensured that the head of the state-run public broadcaster would no longer be a political appointee (as opposed to Italy).
Story
The TV broadcasting of the satirical program RAIot was censored in November 2003 after the comedian, Sabina Guzzanti, made outspoken criticism of the Berlusconi media empire. Mediaset, one of Berlusconi's companies, sued the Italian state broadcasting company RAI because of the Guzzanti show asking for 20 million Euro for "damages" and from November 2003 she was forced to appear only in theatres around Italy.
In August 2005, it was the sleeper hit of the Venice International Film Festival, receiving a 15-minute standing ovation after its premiere screening. When it opened in Italian theaters, over 200,000 people went to see it in the first week.
The public source identifies “Viva Zapatero!” as 2005 documentary film by Sabina Guzzanti. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Viva, Zapatero and documentary.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q521117. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2005, 2004 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Viva Zapatero!” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.