Luca Barbareschi

Who is Luca Barbareschi?

Luca Barbareschi is an Italian-Uruguayan actor, television presenter and politician, member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

He was one of four actors whom the Italian police believed had been murdered in the making of the 1980 horror film Cannibal Holocaust. So realistic was the film that shortly after it was released its director Ruggero Deodato was arrested for murder. The actors had signed contracts to stay out of the media for a year in order to fuel rumours that the film was a snuff movie. The court was only convinced that they were alive when the contracts were cancelled and the actors appeared on a television show as proof.

In 2008 he was elected as Member of the Italian Parliament at the Chamber of Deputies with Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right party People of Freedom. In 2010 he joined, with other 32 deputies and 10 senators, the Gianfranco Fini's new party "Future and Freedom for Italy".

In 2012 he made a great stir when he knocked out an Italian journalist who was asking about his absence from sessions of parliament.