05/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - Italian film-makers mobilise for cultural exception in free trade. Four Oscar-winning Italian film-makers - Roberto Benigni, Bernardo Bertolucci, Giuseppe Tornatore and Gabriele Salvatore - are heading the call launched on 4 June by the Italian audiovisual and cinema world to the head of government, Enrico Letta, to support the cultural exception in the EU-US free-trade negotiations. The Council is expected to give its formal green light to these negotiations in mid-June. Italian public radio and television RAI, the private Mediaset group (which belongs to Silvio Berlusconi), many associations, unions, companies from the sector, and the employers' federation Confindustria have all signed up to the call, which urges Letta's government to “take a strong position” and oppose the inclusion of cultural and audiovisual activities - including digital - in the transatlantic negotiations. (EH/transl.fl)