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1994: Berlusconi Rising

ItalyDramaTV-MA1 Season

Italy changed for good in 1994. Leonardo Notte is all too aware of this. He pushed to see Berlusconi get into Palazzo Chigi: and while it’s not easy to win power, he finds holding on to it m

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8 Episodes

It’s March 23rd and a history-making face-off plays out on Italian television between Silvio Berlusconi and Achille Occhetto. Behind the scenes, Leonardo is doing everything he can to help the “Cavaliere” win the joust, but the ghosts from the past are back to haunt him: if he wants a seat in Parliament, he will have to clarify what happened on the night he got shot. Leo, however, prefers to keep the secret to himself, even if it means forsaking his candidature.

Veronica is now officially a Member of Parliament for Forza Italia but has come to realize just how difficult it is to shake the prejudice against her: even for Leo, she’s still the pretty girl in search of the spotlight. So, for the first time in her life, Veronica pulls her sleeves up and, together with female MPs from other parties, gets to work on a bill that addresses violence against women.

Under his friend Maroni, Pietro becomes the Home Office Minister Under Secretary, but the government immediately falls prey to difficulties: will Maroni surrender to the lures of Berlusconi or will he follow the dictates of his party leader Bossi, who is determined not to bend to his ally? Pietro remains faithful to his long-time comrade, but the approval of the Biondi Decree could turn against him and ruin his life forever.

Scaglia, who has become Di Pietro’s right-hand man, knows that with the Biondi Decree the government has taken the clash with the magistrates to a higher level. But, he wants to find the thread linking a kickback paid to a finance police officer to Mondadori, the major publishing and media company owned by the Prime Minister. However, as his fact-finding mission progresses, he discovers someone close to him has skeletons in their closet. Should he set aside family bonds for justice?

In his summer villa in Sardinia, Berlusconi tries to heal the rift with his government ally Bossi. Also present in the villa are Leo and Veronica, who have recently become engaged, along with Pietro, who in the end manages to sway the former showgirl and spend a night of passion with her. But, the summer holiday is marked by the death of a member of the Forza Italia Party staff: a terrible foreboding of what is about to happen to the government.

While Berlusconi is engaged in Naples for the UN summit on organized crime, Leo has to find a pair of earrings snatched from the wife of the Finnish Justice Minister, before the media gets wind of it. He succeeds, but then cannot resist the beautiful Finnish woman, though he has recently proposed to Veronica. The summit is an apparent success for Berlusconi, but Di Pietro and his pool of judges send him an order to appear in court; linked to the enquiry on the finance police kickbacks scandal.

On the day of Leo and Veronica’s wedding one person is glaringly absent: Silvio Berlusconi, whose government is about to fall. The dream of changing Italy seems to have collapsed forever after only six months. In the end, he does attend the wedding, but it’s too late. Because someone else has turned up at the reception: Pietro, who has taken his revenge on the man who killed his father and who is now forcing Veronica to make a life choice... will she stay with him or marry Leo?

2011. Everything’s changed since 1994, but like then the Berlusconi government is about to fall. Leo, who in the meantime has become a successful entrepreneur, is looking for help from “Cavaliere” Berlusconi himself, and it seems as if something is being revived between then. But, Leo senses the rising star of Italian politics in a man named Gianroberto Casaleggio. So, Leo returns to his old love, politics, while Pietro and Veronica return to a love they seemed to have forgotten.

Credits

Creators

Alessandro Fabbri, Stefano Sardo, Ludovica Rampoldi

Cast

Giovanni Ludeno, Stefano Accorsi, Guido Caprino, Miriam Leone, Antonio Gerardi

Director

Giuseppe Gagliardi

Writer

Mirko Cetrangolo

Producers

Mario Gianani, Lorenzo Mieli

Executive Producers

Nils Hartmann, Sonia Rovai

Cinematographer

Marco Graziaplena

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