The documentary tells the story of a territory bound to the rest of the nation by a thread made of waste — a territory turned into a dumping ground where people are dying.
There are tears, there is denunciation, there is the cry of an entire land asking for help. This is what the documentary film "Il segreto di Pulcinella – Viaggio nella Terra dei fuochi" tells, now showing in cinemas.
A documentary that begins with what was once known as Campania Felix and that, since the 1990s, has been turned into Italy's dumping ground. The film, written and directed by young filmmaker Mary Griffo and produced by Socialmovie, in co-production with Movie Factory, uses testimony and images to portray what the Land of Fires is today: a poisoned land that yields fruit that kills.
Everyone knows, but no one talks about it. A secret that is no longer one. This is what the film is about, shot over two years of filming across lands ravaged by toxic waste and illegal bonfires. And inhabited by hundreds of families. Among them are those who have never given up — and still haven't.
"I wanted to tell the story of a journey. The story of how resistance is built in a territory like the Land of Fires," says Mary Griffo, speaking to the press. "Of what it means to live in these lands. And to do so through the testimonies and emotions of those who live here."
Then there is the testimony of Speranza Piu, one of the most determined voices denouncing the waste emergency in the area and demanding the attention of the authorities. Or that of don Maurizio, parish priest of the Parco Verde di Caivano, who describes residents worn down by the stench of constant fires, ill-equipped to cope with the situation and disheartened by the impossibility of engaging with the institutions.
Or the story of police officer Roberto Mancini, who literally gave his life through painstaking, meticulous work for the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the waste cycle in the late 1990s and early 2000s, dying of cancer as a result of fumes and toxic inhalations.
There are significant contributions in Il segreto di Pulcinella. Among them is the last public interview given by former camorrista and state's witness Carmine Schiavone, the first person to lift the lid on the scandal in the early 1990s. "Why does no one talk about it? Who cares if people die, if children are born deformed or die of leukaemia. I still have nightmares and I wake up in the night thinking about my past mistakes," says the now elderly treasurer of the Schiavone clan, who ordered dozens of murders. "What made me do it." These were his last words, spoken a few months before his death. Almost a legacy — the words of an old man disillusioned with life, who knows he has betrayed his land.
Playing Schiavone's wife is Marisa Laurito, a long-standing passionate activist on this issue: "Taking part in projects like this means trying to carry a message. I have never abandoned my land — in my heart, in my mind, in my flesh," says Laurito. "But today it is the largest toxic waste dump in Europe and we have been left to fend for ourselves."
And then there are those who refuse to give up. Not only by protesting, but by working side by side with those whose families have been struck by illness — and increasingly by death, particularly of young children and infants. Yet from victims they have transformed themselves into lifelong volunteers. Thirteen mothers who found, in their grief, the strength to try to change something. "Today we are six mothers and two fathers trying to be there for sick children and their families," says Marzia Caccioppoli, a young mother from the Land of Fires and founder of the association Stop Biocidio. "We are outraged. Not only are we falling ill, but we cannot even get treatment because there are no funds, there is no home care in Campania. We don't know how to stop these children from suffering." A cry of pain and a plea for help from people living among fires and toxic waste that seeps foul odours from the ground. But a cry from people who have now joined forces: doctors, researchers and civil society are working side by side to carry out studies, secure funding and help this land emerge from the shadows.