Fashion Entertainment

(ANSA) - Genoa, November 19 - George Clooney posters have become the latest victims of an Italian minister's drive to boost public sector efficiency.

Admin staff at a Genoa court were dismayed Thursday when the posters of the Hollywood heartthrob were declared "unseemly" under a 'decorum' clause in Civil Service Minister Renato Brunetta's anti-slacker law.

Clerks said removing posters was the last thing management should be worried about.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 19 - A biopic on legendary Italian designer Valentino has made the shortlist of documentary films eligible for next year's Oscar.

''Winning the Oscar would be an incredible crown for an emperor,'' said the designer, in a quip over the title of the feature, Valentino: The Last Emperor.

Valentino has called the documentary by Vanity Fair reporter Matt Tyrnauer his ''authorised biography,'' saying that it contained ''all of me, with great sincerity...the moments of rage, anger, annoyance, the funny times: it's me, absolutely natural''.

(ANSA) - Turin, November 18 -Cinema is alive and well according to Italian filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola in Turin on Wednesday to pick up a lifetime achievement award at the city's film festival.

''Over the last 100 years, cinema has become a world language,'' said the 70-year-old writer, director and producer, who is also presenting his new film Tetro.

A family drama about the estranged children of Italian immigrants, Tetro was shot mainly in black and white, with scenes in color reserved for the characters' childhood memories.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 18 - Prince Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, the grandson of Italy's last king, is mulling the idea of a singing career after winning the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars, entertainment sources said on Wednesday.

Emanuele Filiberto, who has made a career of appearing in TV commercials and newspaper ads, won this year's edition of Ballando con le Stelle and is now thinking of taking part in the Sanremo festival, Italy's most popular songfest.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 16 - Italian fashion icon Valentino told reporters on Monday he missed his work but had no regrets about his decision to retire.

"I miss the daily routine, being in the atelier but the high fashion world has been hard hit by the crisis and no one makes those expensive clothes any more," said the 77-year-old designer, who dressed the world's most glamourous women in his 45-year career.

"I wouldn't be able to express my creativity any longer. Yes, I miss it but I'm also glad not to caught in this (economic) crisis".

(ANSA) - Rome, November 6 - A film allegedly slandering the granddaughter of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini will be the subject of a Rome court hearing on Monday in an attempt to block its release in late November.

Alessandro Mussolini, an MP with Premier Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, has asked judges to keep "Francesca" from coming out unless the producers cut dialogue in which she is referred to as "a whore".

(ANSA) - Rome, November 6 - Italian pop star Laura Pausini said she was thrilled with her fourth Latin Grammy award.

''I already felt I'd won by being chosen to kick off the night,'' she said.

The award itself left her ''stunned, more than ever,'' she said.

''No words can describe what I'm feeling''.

Pausini won the prestigious prize for her smash hit album 'Primavera anticipada' (Early Spring).

(ANSA) - Rome, November 6 - A new exhibition in Rome aims to whisk visitors on a dazzling voyage through 20th-century Italian design icons.

The event at the Ara Pacis museum looks at the design process in detail, from the first drawings, through the copyrighting, through to the manufacturing and marketing of the finished product.

''This initiative aims to educate people about the everyday objects they use,'' explained Massimo Arlechino, head of the Valore Italia Foundation that organized the exhibit.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 6 - Italian pop star Laura Pausini has picked up her fourth Latin Grammy award, winning the prestigious prize for her smash hit album 'Primavera anticipada' (Early Spring).

The 35-year-old singer, who has a huge following in Latin America, received her 'best pop vocal album by a female artist' award at a glittering ceremony in Las Vegas on Thursday night.

She last scooped the award in 2007, for Yo Canto (I Sing).

(updates previous). (ANSA) - Milan, November 2 - Italian poet Alda Merini is to receive a state funeral in her native Milan, Mayor Letizia Moratti said Monday.

Wednesday's funeral in the Duomo would pay tribute to a writer whose importance was both local and national, the mayor said.

''Alda Merini charted a course through the history and culture of our city, providing important reflections for the rest of the country,'' Moratti said.

(ANSA) - Milan, November 2 - Italian poet Alda Merini is to get a state funeral in her native Milan, Mayor Letizia Moratti said Monday.

Wednesday's funeral in the Duomo would pay tribute to a writer whose importance was both local and national, the mayor said.

''Alda Merini charted a course through the history and culture of our city, providing important reflections for the rest of the country,'' Moratti said.

Merini, 78, died in Milan Sunday at the age of 78.

(ANSA) - Paris, October 30 - An Italian publishing company wants to put Premier Silvio Berlusconi into the Italian version of a new French book on the world's greatest-ever outlaws, a French weekly reported Friday.

The centre-right leader and media magnate would join the ranks of Robin Hood, Calamity Jane and French underworld icon Jacques Mesrine, l'Express said.

According to the report, the unidentified publisher is eager to make an Italian edition of Laurent Marechaux's 'Hors La Loi' provided the author adds a chapter on Berlusconi.

(ANSA) - New York, October 30 - More than 40 landmarks in Italian neorealist cinema from Rossellini, De Sica and Visconti to Fellini and Pasolini are set to be be shown in New York in the biggest-ever spotlight on Italy's famous postwar film movement.

The October 30-November 25 showcase at the Walter Reade Theater, set up by Cinecitta' Luce and Italy's National Film Archives with the help of the Lincoln Center's Film Society, is entitled Italian Neorealism And The Birth of Modern Cinema.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 28 - American director Sidney Lumet will be the recipient of this year's Fellini Prize, a lifetime achievement award given by Italy's prestigious Federico Fellini Foundation.

The prize - a gold-leaf statue bearing a dream-like drawing by the Italian maestro - will be awarded on November 7 at the end of two days of events organised in Rimini by the foundation in the memory of the Oscar-winning Italian director.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 27 - Giorgio Armani may not be retiring yet, but he has begun laying the groundwork for his successors, the fashion mogul said on Tuesday.

In Moscow for a show celebrating a banner year for the newly opened Emporio Armani on Red Square, the 75-year-old designer snapped at reporters who asked if he was mulling retirement.

''That's an impertinent question,'' he said, before joking ''look at me, I don't look so bad''.