Film to be made about Mussolini's mistress

A film is to be made about a woman whom Italy's fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, tried to airbrush out of history. Ida Dalser and her son by Mussolini both died in mental institutions after she tried unsuccessfully to force the dictator to recognise their marriage and his son, also named Benito. "Not even Nero or Caligula would have done what you have done," she once wrote to him.

The story has considerable relevance because of efforts by the Italian right to rehabilitate the dictator and portray him as a good family man and an essentially harmless, if occasionally misguided, authoritarian. His political heirs are to be found in the "post-fascist" National Alliance, the second-biggest party in the coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi that governed Italy until last year.

Although it was known Mussolini had had a relationship with Dalser before World War I, the evidence for a marriage and the existence of their son was brought to light only in 2001 by a historian in northern Italy.