The Tirana Conspiracy

In December 2000, Oliviero Toscani, the renowned photographer and artistic director famous for his bold and provocative ad campaigns (Benetton), accepted an invitation from Giancarlo Politi, art critic and publisher, to curate a section of the inaugural edition of the Tirana Biennale, Albania’s largest international art event. Toscani introduced the public to four controversial artists whose works were unsettling, inappropriate, or even offensive to moral sensibilities : Dimitri Bioy, a pedophile; Marcello Gavotta, a pornographer; Bola Equa, an activist wanted by the Nigerian government; and Hamid Picardo, Osama bin Laden​’s official photographer. What followed was one of the greatest hoaxes in the history of contemporary art. Now, with the statute of limitations expired, the key players can finally reveal the truth. This documentary sheds light on the scandals sparked by the event and critically examines the mechanisms that grant legitimacy and value to art. Through a narrative that blurs the lines between truth and manipulation, the film explores the flaws of the art market, the intellectual trends embraced by the art elite, and the fragility of aesthetic evaluation systems.

Director’s statement:
Anyone confronted with The Tirana Conspiracy cannot help but ask a question : What is art? The documentary will not give you an answer. Actually, I tried, but I think it is an indecipherable riddle. Each of my possible answers contained a definition, but how can you define something that is constantly evolving? There is, however, another question that I faced while working on this film: What is documentary filmmaking? In search of answers, I opened the Treccani (l’Enciclopedia Italiana di scienze) :

​“The term documentary, in common usage, refers to a film, of any length, made without explicit fictional aims, and therefore generally without a script that plans the shooting, but rather with the availability of events and without actors. The documentary is based on an ontological relationship with the filmed reality, which is supposed to be returned to the screen as it manifested itself in front of the camera, without mediation. The film is the document of this reality, the proof that things happened as they are projected. In contrast, fictional cinema represents a mediated reality, manipulated by the filmmaker to express what he has imagined. It is a staged reality. In d., the camera is at the service of the reality before it; in fictional film, reality is reworked for the camera. In the latter, the spectator’s implicit covenant with the screen is: ​“I know very well that what I see represented is not true, though it is true, and yet I believe it”; in the former, he will rather say: ​“What I see is true, and not only true, and therefore I believe it”.

I have therefore decided to abandon the Master Teachings of the Cinema of the Real, which I studied at DAMS, and to rely solely on the wise words of our most illustrious encyclopaedia. My film will be the document of reality, the proof that the events of the ​“Tirana Plot” took place as they were projected. My camera will be at the service of reality. I will not be a mediator or manipulator of reality. I will also have an ontological relationship with reality. But what if there is no reality? I will have no choice but to represent it for what it is : a lie.
- Manfredi Lucibello


In the presence of director Manfredi Lucibello on March 15^th in Montreal.