Outtakes

Italian porn actress Pozzi was murdered

When famous Italian porn actress Moana Pozzi died in 1994 following a brief battle with cancer, many believed that her husband, Antonio Di Ciesco, was responsible but it was never proven. But now prosecutors have opened a probe into the actress’s death in Lyon 13 years ago.
The probe comes after Di Ciesco told Roman daily Il Messaggero he injected air into his wife’s drip after she begged him to end her suffering. “I don’t want to end up in a bed with tubes sticking out of me everywhere, no longer in control of my body,” Di Ciesco said Moana told him, asking him for a “sacrifice in the name of love”.
Di Ciesco, who said he confessed in order to lay to rest the urban legend that Moana was still alive somewhere, said he tried to dissuade his wife but did not regret their decision. “It was a decision we took with serenity... the right choice, because there was no other way out, but one which cost me a lot”.
A day after Di Ciesco’s revelation in excerpts of a forthcoming book, Pozzi’s former manager Riccardo Schicchi accused Di Ciesco of murdering the 33-year-old actress. “I spoke to her on the phone the night before her death and she had no intention of asking for euthanasia,” he said.
Schicchi said he pressed charges to “safeguard the memory” of Pozzi, who is still a legend to Italian porn fans. Rome prosecutors said they were poised to question Di Ciesco, Schicchi and Pozzi’s mother and obtained medical records from the French clinic where Pozzi died. If Di Ciesco confirms his reported account, he could be charged with “killing a consenting adult,” police said.
Pozzi’s unexpected death in September 1994, kept secret for day afterwards, spawned a rash of rumours and conspiracy theories. In 2005 Italian police closed an inquiry into claims the blonde actress had faked her death to lead a new life away from the porn world. The previous year, prosecutors shelved another inquiry into claims Pozzi fled the spotlight to hide her links to one or several top politicians. In her own memoirs, published in 1991 under the title The Philosophy of Moana, Pozzi referred to numerous liaisons with important people but named no names. Her death followed a major upheaval on the Italian political scene, when vast corruption scandals brought down the once-dominant Christian Democrat and Socialist parties. On several internet websites, disgraced Socialist ex-premier Bettino Craxi is cited as “her most famous secret lover”.
Pozzi, who came from an affluent family, began a career as an aspiring starlet in 1981, straight after leaving school. She was given a score of bit parts, even working under Federico Fellini as a curvaceous model in the movie Ginger and Fred.
However, she never made it in mainstream movies and turned to porn in the late 1980s, hooking up with Schicchi and his Hungarian-born star Ilona Staller, better known by her stage name Cicciolina. Pozzi later joined Staller in founding the Love Party, campaigning to legalize brothels, introduce better sex education and create ‘love parks’. She ran in the 1992 national elections and again in local elections in Rome in 1993.
She went on to become a popular TV talk show guest and hosted several variety shows — the first porno star to break the mould in this way.
Pozzi, whose films are still in demand today, is said to have left her entire fortune to cancer research.

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The Toronto Jewish Film Festival takes place May 5 to 13 and has invited films, documentaries, shorts and special guests from all over the world to showcase diverse visions of Jewish culture, stories and experiences. From Italy comes Angela by directors Andrea and Antonio Frazzi. Angela (Sabrina Ferilli), a single mother, is forced to trade on the black market in order to feed her son during World War Two. At the desperate urging of her Jewish neighbour, she reluctantly agrees to harbour his only son, Davide. An unexpected love blossoms between the two, only to be shattered when Davide sets out to join the resistance movement and is captured. Using her powers of coercion, Angela sets off a chain of events that force her to make decisions that test every fibre of her being. For more information about the festival, please visit www.tjff.com.

Publication Date: 2007-04-29
Story Location: http://www.tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=7248