Trapped for over ten years in an extremely run-down and crime-ridden area where time stands still, the squatters in the Parco Saraceno lead their lives amidst poverty and illegality, prey to the everyday violence while dreaming of a normal life. Change is coming to the park, however. In a few years it’s all going to be razed to the ground to make way for a harbour for pleasure boats, to relaunch the entire area. A grotesque group portrait composed of the words and faces of the residents who know the stories, and the humanity, of this extreme, forgotten community.

Director’s statement
Ritratti abusivi is a tale of two failures: the failure of the government, which has allowed dozens of kilometres of Campania’s coast to be paved over haphazardly, and the failure of a photography project I had undertaken in the area, and described in my documentary devoted to the Domitiana highway.