ITALIE | Ovopedia, the revisionnist encyclopedia

06/02/09 | Matteo Politanò

Italian prime minister's new project will reread world events in a videoclips encyclopedia. Peter Gomez raises the issue in the Espresso by turning the full light on the team members from Ovopedia.


It'll be called Ovopedia, Wikipedia deformed and revised, and it shall be a video encyclopedia that sees itself as a new worldwide channel. A colossal work with thousands of entries broadcasted on  TV, by satellite,cable as well as on the web.The owner of this project is Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who gathered a  team of fourty people in Milano,on Maroncelli street.They have been working fo a year to realize this project. The head of the project is MTV Italia former VJ, Andrea Pezzi, one of Prime minister Berlusconi's darling who presides the company and controls 53% of it through Nova Fronda another limited liability company that takes its name from the psycho-philosophical credo of Antonio Meneghetti. Meneghetti is a former Franciscan brother who founded Ontopsychology in the 70's, a discipline which aims at the " formation of the leader, understood as active intuition of business solutions" In 98, Meneghetti's Ontopsychological association appeared in a report from the Minister of the Interior which concerned religious sects and new obscure movements in Italy. The former brother then expressed all his contempt to be considered at the same level as the Church of Scientology by suing the Viminal palace and obtaining a few dozen millions of Lire in compensation. What is worrying, however, are Meneghetti's all time spread historico-political theories : Russophile and convinced anti-american, he told many times the necessity to " put the Jewish Holocaust in perspective" because " Jews aren't the only people that suffered and payed". According to Meneghetti, even Hitler or Staline should be studied for their inner self, without forgetting that " reality is like a chessboard where the winner makes the laws,write History and sets Morality". "If we could have probed the objective inner motivation of a leader,we would have noticed,to the surprise of many, that the cultural roots of a Hitler are to be found in the doctrine of Tibetan Dalai-Lamas. There lie the inspirationnal fundaments that justify his way of doing, which is in substance not a will to occupy the others, but to purify and save the world",the former brother explains. Indeed, Meneghetti gives courses on "how to become a leader", named " leadership training courses" that are meant for " professionnals, entrepreneurs and politics from all origins". One of these trainees is no other than... Andrea Pezzi.
In an article by Peter Gomez, the weekly paper the Espresso told of the preview showing of some of the videoclips produced so far for OVO. In the one entitled "The raise of nazism", a typical editing of musical clips -with a background music definitely guileful and lively -presents the story of how swastikas seized the power , without too much of historical,ethic or moral judgement. So,Hitler turns out to be only a leader with a very powerful "personnal charisma and extraordinary talents of speaker", while on the issue of Mein Kampf, there is no reference to racism and it is only said that in his book, the Fuhrer " asserts that the current decline of Germany is due to a plot by jews and communists aimed at sowing disagreement and weakening the country's economy". To sum up, giving the "teacher" 's positions, there is no surprises that Hitler- according to intern sources in OVO- was meant to be defined, in his biography, as a controvertial character", which is the same sentence that ends the video on Staline. In this case as well, " the soul's strenght" of the communist dictator is highlighted and after a passage on the millions of death he caused " to maintain order ", the clip ends on  these words : " Controvertial figure of the twentiest century, the steel man leaves behind him an empire". In OVO, he'll be at the same level as Aristotle, Freud, Sartre and Saint Augustin, in the " mystic intellectuals" quarter...
So far, OVO tried to no avail to be present on the Sky platform, made a deal with Vodafone to supply multimedia contents on mobile phones and knocked on the american cable TV's door. The plan : the production of two thousands clips a year for three thousands euros each, to which we must add the money to buy video archives . Considering all the productions already made, a business of seven or eight millions euros every twelve months drove the company to a loss of nearly two millions. The problem, raised by Gomez in the Espresso, is specifically that this project sees itself as tentacular in order to gather and collaborate with as many mediatic tools as possible to spread deep and wide this new border that is video encyclopedia and, according to what we saw, a new version or "perspective" on many historical topics.

Rédacteur :
Matteo Politanò, Genova Italie
Traducteur :
Erwann De Carhei, Nantes France