Netflix already has a movie, L'Oro di Scampia, produced a few years ago, which has little fiction and a lot of reality. There are actors, a script, music and all the paraphernalia of cinema but the story is that of Gianni Maddaloni, whose biography deserves several films. If you have the chance to meet him one day, you’ll understand immediately.
L’oro di Scampia, the Gold of Scampia for those who do not speak italian, is the story of Enzo, that is, Gianni, the man who has spent forty years helping his neighbours in the poorest and probably most dangerous neighbourhood of Naples, Scampia, a place that inspired other films and series’ that mostly focus on the bad guys, but Maddaloni is just as simple as his legend is a giant and he is the good guy.
There, in a disadvantaged land contaminated by unemployment, violence and drugs, a land that is abandoned by many, Gianni is the tree that endures in the midst of the storm, the voluntary pillar of a society that sometimes surrenders without a fight. Gianni can boast of having taken the most disadvantaged off the streets, educating them, transmitting values and even teaching them to defend themselves and to understand judo as a healthy practice and a school of life. If there is someone who deserves a Nobel Peace Prize or whatever exists, that is Gianni, whose fetish word is love.
No matter the frustrations, the defeats and the failures, Gianni always stands up, like judo taught him. He stands up to bring hope to the whole Scampia community.
The Gold of Scampia is his story and the film is worth watching and since we are promoting it, it would be a good idea to take a look at the documentary dedicated to Gianni Maddaloni, that belongs to the series ‘Judo for the World,’ produced by the International Judo Federation. This one is real with Gianni as the protagonist and where he speaks of everything he does and why. Both programmes, the film and the documentary, are interesting, because one is real and the other is the product of reality. In both you’ll discover what dedication and self-sacrifice mean and that courage still has significance, in the small world of Scampia, which reflects what the whole world could become without values.
The reality is also that Gianni Maddaloni, ‘Maestro’ as his pupils call him, despite all the difficulties, the struggles, the fights even, is still living in Scampia and is still active to transmit his love for judo to the young ones. The reality is also that his son, Pino, whose adventure is an important part of the film, really became an Olympic champion in 2000 in Sydney and that he is now one of the IJF Refereeing Supervisors attending most of the World Judo Tour events. The reality after all is that when we talk about ‘judo family’ it has a true meaning when it comes to Maddaloni & Co.
What we really recommend, beyond giving the ok on the television remote control, is to understand how one's will can move mountains and when that will is aimed at the service of good, it would be a shame to pass by without paying attention, because the history of Gianni and Scampia is the history of the world as we have built it.