Camorra Art And Death
The relation between crime and the arts has a long history – especially with regard to Italy. The Neapolitan Camorra (Italy’s oldest Mafia) presents a quite unique relationship to art. The scope of our documentary is to show criminal artists at work and to find out how they themselves frame crime, art, and in many cases: religion.
Our protagonists are, among others: a boss who is a painter of landscapes while his son is a singer of popular music. The mafia has its own music channels and its own peculiar song contests. As a boss gets arrested attending the Opera San Carlo the newspaper titles: “He has shown better qualities as an artist than as a boss of the Camorra – his artistic devotion lead him to his destiny.” One mafia boss who reigned over half of the city finally wants to be recognized as a great poet while another wrote a kind of a Camorrista’s companion to success during his preventive detention which is still available at the city’s newsstands today.
We will portray a gangsterhood between cruelty and artistic devotion, trace their histories, explore how they are connected to both the official art market and the long history of Naples, Italy’s most intriguing and most vibrant place.