The description of Sinn Fein handed out before the showing mentions two actors: Richi Ferrero and the Berlin Wall. There is no doubt that the percentage of time on the screen is about the same: an artist’s performance, the symbol of a (still) divided Europe blends in a continuous referral from one to the other. Sinn Fein, as is known, is the motto of the IRA, the Irish Republican Army and means “we stand alone”. The contrast is based on three elements: the images of the Berlin Wall, the performance by Ferrero who recites extracts from his Bukowskian show, a soundtrack filled with hard rock and electronic music. For the film-makers of the time, Berlin was a sort of symbol: in 1984 the Videocongress, a meeting between Italian and German directors, was held in Turin and the elaboration of images so typical of the German school affected Italian creation for some time afterwards. Ferrero’s role seems to have been that of interpreting the space that humanity occupies in those totalitarian institutions which oppress creativity by using power. On the other hand, one of the reasons the video was successful lies in the play between the cutting and the musical clips, the scratched images from militant videos and the presence of an important text that slowly blends with the other two levels of discourse.

From Cinema Out of the Ordinary by Stefano Della Casa in Richi Ferrero and Il Gran Teatro Urbano edited by Ruggero Bianchi, 2001