Francesco Sossai to Direct 'Tanko' on 1997 Venice Piazza San Marco Raid

Belluno-born director Francesco Sossai is preparing a new feature film titled Tanko, centered on the May 1997 raid on Piazza San Marco in Venice by Venetian separatists. Between 8 and 9 May 1997, a group from the province of Padova traveled to Venice carrying a homemade armored vehicle, a small tracked machine built from a modified agricultural vehicle and lacking real weaponry, which was nicknamed the tanko. After reaching Piazza San Marco, some participants forced entry into the campanile and raised the flag of the Lion of San Marco, aiming to symbolically occupy the city's heart and evoke a new Venetian independence at a time when autonomy and separatist themes were strong in the Nord Est. On the morning of 9 May, Carabinieri GIS officers intervened promptly and arrested the occupiers, but the media power of those images left a mark on Italian political history of the 1990s. Sossai's film, now in preparation, will shoot between Veneto and Venice, with casting of extras already underway. The project follows Altri cannibali and especially Le città di pianura, presented at Cannes and one of the most appreciated Italian titles of the season. While Le città di pianura followed architecture student Giulio and two hapless fifty-year-olds, Carlobianchi and Doriano, through the Veneto plain, Tanko draws on a story already part of collective memory, which Sossai approaches from a different perspective, moving beyond political chronicle to portray a territory.