By Miren Gutierrez and Aldo Ciummo*
ROME, May 27 (IPS) – The room is packed, the film ends with pounding music, and the word “Gomorra” is shown in an uncomfortable fuchsia over black. The audience applauds and leaves quietly while the music continues to hammer home the message.
“Gomorra” an inside look at Naples’ notorious Camorra gang has won the Grand Prix at Cannes, and the book of the same title on which it is based has been translated into dozens of languages, and sold millions of copies. But for Italians, it is not mere entertainment.
“We’ve known this to be true already,” said Eliana Villa, as she left the theatre. “But this movie has showed us the reality in an unprocessed, detailed way.”
“It is impossible to be optimistic, but we need to fight this situation,” added audience member Lidia Marzoli.
The publication of the book in 2006 was followed by death threats against its author, Roberto Saviano, who relates the first-person account of a young man learning the ropes of illegal toxic waste disposal.
“I am constantly escorted by police, I have to move all the time… I don’t lead a normal life anymore,” Aviano told the daily La Repubblica last year.
From underworld warfare to the Camorra’s control of the building industry, arms and drug trafficking, haute couture manufacturing, and even the handling of toxic waste, Saviano depicts a shocking portrait of a crime syndicate that has killed 3,600 people in the last 30 years, according to different accounts, including that of former prosecutor Gen. Pier Luigi Vigna.
