[Ciao Bella!]

A parliamentary confrontation

between a German and an Italian Member of Parliament in early June 2003 escalated to a statement by an Italian State Minister, who described the Germans as ‚uniform, blonde super-nationalists‘ who ‚loudly descend upon our beaches every year‘. As a result, Chancellor Schröder canceled his annual holiday in Italy. The rift between Italy and Germany deepened politically more and more that summer…

Citizen were needed now

who as Ambassadors of the People* tried to bridge this divide as part of the New German Way. Two of them were Patricia Hoeppe and RP Brinkman. They traveled through Italy for a week as turisti tedeschi, with style, grace, and gallantry, in a cosmopolitan way, embodying both European and German values in order to express the respect and love that Germans have for Italy. The criteria for style and class included, for example, the classic dress code, the announcement of the project to the Italian public through the distribution of leaflets, as well as engaging with the local public to express goodwill.

In their cinematic travel report, they showed the invited Italian and German parliamentarians, as well as German and Italian citizens, at the Italian Embassy in Berlin that Italy is, for the Germans, a country of great culture, countless refined styles, and full of joie de vivre.