News

Italian photographer Rino Barillari accuses French actor of punching and injuring him last May at a bar in the capital

Gérard Depardieu is facing a trial in Rome after allegedly punching a legendary paparazzo outside a bar in the Italian capital.

The French actor, who earlier this month was found guilty by a Paris court of sexually assaulting two women during a film shoot in 2021, is charged with causing personal injury to the Italian photographer Rino Barillari. The case is due to begin at a court in Rome on 17 June.

The Italian photographer is no stranger to altercations, but when he set off for Harry’s Bar, it had been a while since his last celebrity contretemps

Not for nothing is Rino Barillari known as “the king of paparazzi”. Over a career spanning more than six decades, he has masqueraded as priests, gardeners and bricklayers in his quest to capture up-close photos of the rich and famous, from Princess Margaret and Jackie Kennedy to the Beatles, Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra.

But until Tuesday, it had been a long time since Barillari was involved in a contretemps with a celebrity.

Federico Fellini claims onscreen that he invented the word "paparazzo" in the 1960 film La Dolce Vita, his bittersweet portrait of hedonism during Italy's postwar boom. The name stuck and went viral. If today we can instantly picture Liz Taylor and Richard Burton strolling down the Via Veneto or Peter O’Toole swinging a punch at a pesky photographer, it's thanks to the lasting fascination of the pictures snapped by Rino Barillari and his paparazzi cohorts.

He is justly celebrated in The King of Paparazzi — The True Story, a heady collection of footage from Istituto Luce and his ...

Federico Fellini claims onscreen that he invented the word "paparazzo" in the 1960 film La Dolce Vita, his bittersweet portrait of hedonism during Italy's postwar boom. The name stuck and went viral. If today we can instantly picture Liz Taylor and Richard Burton strolling down the Via Veneto or Peter O’Toole swinging a punch at a pesky photographer, it's thanks to the lasting fascination of the pictures snapped by Rino Barillari and his paparazzi cohorts.

He is justly celebrated in The King of Paparazzi — The True Story, a heady collection of footage from Istituto Luce and his ...

In a moment of cinematic doldrums, some of the most popular new Italian films look back nostalgically at the golden age of neorealism and comedy Italian-style, like two applauded docs that bowed at the Rome Film Festival that tip their hats to Vittorio Gassman (I’m Gassman! King of Comedy) and Rino Barillari (The King of Paparazzi).

Closing the festival, instead, was Paolo Virzi’s delightful but decidedly uncelebratory Magic Nights (Notti magiche) which chooses to stare at the after-image of the glory days when, in the early '90s, the Roman film industry had pretty much already gone ...

In a moment of cinematic doldrums, some of the most popular new Italian films look back nostalgically at the golden age of neorealism and comedy Italian-style, like two applauded docs that bowed at the Rome Film Festival that tip their hats to Vittorio Gassman (I’m Gassman! King of Comedy) and Rino Barillari (The King of Paparazzi).

Closing the festival, instead, was Paolo Virzi’s delightful but decidedly uncelebratory Magic Nights (Notti magiche) which chooses to stare at the after-image of the glory days when, in the early '90s, the Roman film industry had pretty much already gone ...