Italian court blocks release of Disney TV crime series

ROME - Global entertainment giant Disney has been forced to cancel the release this month of a TV crime series set in Italy after a mayor successfully complained to a court that the show gave his small town a bad name.

Avetrana - This Is Not Hollywood, a fictionalised account of the 2010 murder of a 15-year-old girl by her family members and of the media frenzy that surrounded the case, was due to air on Oct 25 on the Disney+ streaming channel.

Disney, acting as distributor, said in a joint statement on Oct 24 with producers Groenlandia that the launch of the series had been postponed following an order from a court in Taranto, southern Italy.

Disney and Groenlandia said they would challenge the decision.

The court suspended the series on Oct 23, provisionally accepting an appeal from Avetrana Mayor Antonio Iazzi. It scheduled a Nov 5 hearing to adjudicate more fully on the affair.

Avetrana is a town of less than 7,000 residents in the Puglia region in Italy’s deep south.

Mr Iazzi says he took legal action because his community is tired of being associated with the gruesome killing.

The municipality wants the TV series to change its name to avoid giving the idea that Avetrana is a community marked by crime, backwardness and “omerta”, the mafia-style code of silence, the mayor said in a statement.

Italian producers’ association APA and the country’s film and TV industry group ANICA criticised the court decision as setting a dangerous precedent against artistic freedom.

“The preventive blocking of the series, still unreleased, appears to be a serious violation of the principle of freedom of expression clearly protected also at constitutional level,” APA president Chiara Sbarigia said. AFP