Biutiful Cauntri

Remember the TV & newspaper pictures late last year of burning piles of rubbish in the streets of Naples?  Ever wondered about the wider implications of this very public problem?  Where all the rubbish went?  This riveting and disturbing documentary will help you understand.

Italian fields, roads and buildings are filmed from a moving car. The camera jolts, the music is ominous and you can feel that something fishy is going on. We soon find out why.  The Campania region of Italy has no less than 1200 illegal dumps of dangerous and poisonous waste. The filmmakers asked themselves: "How can this happen in Italy - and even in Europe - in 2007?"

Dumping waste is big business in Italy and it earns the Camorra, the local Mafia, enormous amounts of money. Local officials and businessmen also have a share of the cake and look the other way.  Chunks of asbestos beside a potato field?  No one clears it up.  Burning car tyres in the field? The fire brigade stays away. Every month three hectares of agricultural land in Campania disappears under the rubbish tsunami.

There are hardly any checks, but there are victims. Sheep breeders see their animals dying of dioxin poisoning from the factory next door. And without being aware of it, people eat poisonous crops. 'We all die here in silence,' comments the independent environmental inspector Raffaele. He debates, searches and curses passionately to make the best of it.  He is the hero of this sobering and powerful documentary. (Source: Italian Film Festival)

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