La chimera

For 36 years, the Vele Committee has been fighting for the dignity of the tenants in these monstrous, asbestos-filled cement towers looming over one of Europe's most controversial slums, and has sought to have them torn down - a prospect which may finally be turning into a reality, after so many decades. This process of astonishing change was a grassroots movement started by the people who live in the Vele and fight for a better life. For years we called the Vele "down and dirty", after the idea in our collective imagination of the Vele as a symbol of crime and Naple's ‘Camorra'. Are we really sure we know the Vele, at all?

The film is directed by Walter De Majo, Giovanni Dota, Elio Di Pace and Matteo Pedicini, with the participation of Omero Benfenati and Lorenzo Liparulo; it is edited by Riccardo Giannetti and produced by Gianluca Arcopinto, Walter De Majo, Camilla Daneo, Alessandro Elia and Giulia D'Amato, per Palabras productions, in collaboration with Collettivo Mina.