The first work by Neapolitan director Diego Santangelo, «A Muzzarell’», arrives at the cinema, with Martina Varriale, Daniele Aiello, music by Adriano Pennino and Partenope. A journey of redemption of two teenagers lost in the distortions of modern society. The film, produced by Santangelo Media Studios, with the support of the Ministry of Culture and the Corto Flegreo Festival and with the patronage of the Campi Flegrei Archaeological Park and the Municipality of Pozzuoli, already has 14 international awards to its credit, including victories and selections , will arrive in theaters starting February 15th.
Daniele, a twelve-year-old from Castel Volturno, is about to lose his grandmother who lives 40 km away, in Bagnoli nei Campi Flegrei. The woman’s last wish is to eat mozzarella made by her son, Daniele’s father, a buffalo farmer. The boy decides to please his grandmother and embarks on a journey, first on a scooter and then on foot, in the company of his crush, Martina. The journey becomes a journey of self-discovery and at the same time an escape from reality. The grip of drugs and social marginalization, the clan of drug dealers, of which the boy risks becoming a courier, are opposed by unexpected encounters with uncommon people and paranormal experiences that emerge insistently, triggering in Daniele memories of a forgotten happy age too soon. Over everything hovers the mysterious presence of a woman who appears in different guises and ages and who seems to accompany him on his journey towards freedom.
An intimate journey is outlined in which the two boys explore the degraded areas of the Campania suburbs until they reach the potential urban paradise of the Campi Flegrei, between the Temple of Diana and that of Apollo, the Roman Baths of Baia and the Sibyl’s cave. Along their journey they will meet drug dealers, prostitutes and kind figures who will lead them towards the right path to take in life. The condition of great risk and potential devastation that our adolescents experience, especially those who are entering life today, who have grown up in the frenzy of mobility of parents who are always on the move – absent, often divorced, desperate, who have lost their way in parenting – in the most absolute incomprehension of a digitalized and “socialized” world: a society of bullies competing for designer labels, cell phones, stadium curves, app anorexia that filters shapes and smoothes the skin creating perfect clones, an impossible world but concretely virtual, which replaces the real world made up of human affections and relationships.
«In the film – explains director Santangelo – the description of the most typically criminal places and situations is compressed into a few scenes, rather it is the possibility of redemption and salvation that pushes us to tell the story».