PRODUCTIONS: FREE MUSSOLINI

DIRECTOR

PRODUCER

DURATION

VERSIONS

FORMAT

Fabio Toncelli

SD Cinematografica

52 min.

HD

For the first time, unpublished documents and photos reveal the secret of the most daring exploit of all time carried out by special forces: Operation Oak, the liberation of the Duce, Benito Mussolini.

Testimonies, memories, filmed material, unpublished photographs, and documents carefully hidden in the Italian archives demolish piece by piece the official nazi version and make it possible for the first time to recount the incredible chain of events that had a strong effect on public opinion throughout the world during World War II and still conceals many obscure aspects.

From July 25, 1943, the day on which the Duce was deposed by a conspiracy within the regime and arrested, there began a ruthless struggle between the Italian, German and Anglo-American secret services to hide or discover where the Duce really was.

Now we are finally able to reconstruct them: a Carabiniere barracks in Rome, the island of Ponza, the island of the Maddalena in Sardinia, a farm house in Abruzzo and finally a hotel in Campo Imperatore at an altitude of more than 2,000 feet. In the first three places, the Germans arrived just after the prisoner had been taken away.

But the race continued. Everyone was aware of the importance for the outcome of the war of possessing Mussolini.

September 12, 1943: the fascist regime in Italy had fallen a month ago. Mussolini was a secret prisoner in an impregnable building in the heart of the mountains of Central Italy, most likely waiting to be consigned to the Anglo-American forces. The post-fascist government of Field Marshal Badoglio thought the hotel in Campo Imperatore was the most secure prison in the world. And it had good reason to think that.

Nonetheless, after an attack of just 14 minutes, he was freed.

It was 14 minutes of pure military boldness, which we will relive minute by minute, with German repertory films, re-enactments and graphic reconstructions, in order to discover the incredible truth.