On A.A.A. Offresi
Tuesday, October 6, 2026 at 7pm
Light Industry, 361 Stagg Street, Suite 407, Brooklyn
A lecture by Erika Balsom
On the eve of the Berlusconi era, when social mores were changing and Italian television was beginning its rapid transformation into a private enterprise, a feminist collective under contract to public broadcaster RAI2 made an experimental video work that became a national scandal. In 1981, Maria Grazia Belmonti, Anna Carini, Rony Daopoulo, Paola De Martiis, Annabella Miscuglio, and Loredana Rotondo used hidden cameras to observe the interactions of French sex worker Véronique Lacroix and her clients in a Roman apartment—unbeknownst to the men involved. When asked about their use of this technique, they responded, “It’s profoundly dishonest. But everything that relates to the image is always dishonest.” They called their film A.A.A. Offresi; roughly translatable as “A.A.A. Services Offered,” the title recalled a classified ad for sex work, with the three A’s at the start ensuring a good position in alphabetical order.
The documentary premiered without incident at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, in what would turn out to be nearly its only official public screenings. On the day it was scheduled to air on Italian television a few weeks later, it was censored. Politicians who had never seen the film were certain it was assault on morality, even though it showed almost no sex and instead focused on discussions before and after, mostly about money. The public weighed in from the left and the right, with one letter-writer going so far as to threaten to blow up a cinema or poison the water supply to the RAI offices if it went on air. Soon, the collective faced criminal charges for the facilitation of prostitution and the invasion of privacy, even though they took care not to show any of the men’s faces. The subsequent trial ended in a full acquittal, but the judge ordered that A.A.A. Offresi remain under indefinite sequestration owing to its use of non-consensual recording. This illustrated talk will tell the story of this controversial film, long presumed to be lost.
- EB
FREE
Please note: seating is limited. First-come, first-served, except for members subscribed at $8/month or more, who may reserve a seat by emailing information@lightindustry.org at least two hours prior to showtime. Box office opens at 6:30pm. No entry 10 minutes after start of show.