With the armistice of September 8, 1943, the war became even bloodier. Instead of leaving the Gulf defeated, German troops and fascist soldiers ordered the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of residents from the coast, continued the arson and looting, ordered the rounding up of young people and the shooting of those who had fled. Hitler ordered Naples to be reduced to “ash and mud.” But Naples responded, “the first European metropolis to rise up against the Nazi oppressor with the sole forces of its people,” as the scholar Guido D’Agostino wrote, and became the protagonist of one of history’s most intense and moving pages of resistance. Between September 27 and 30, 1943, everyone took to the streets, aristocrats and workers, women, wimps and children; Many lives were lost, but victory came, painful, heroic and powerful. On the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of these events, Rai 3 presents the documentary “Four Days for Freedom: Naples 1943” – a Big Sur production with Luce Cinecittà in collaboration with Rai Documentari, Titanus Spa and Mad Entertainment with the contribution of Campania Regional and Film Commission of the Campania Region and support of the Municipality of Naples – broadcast on Friday September 29th at 9:15 p.m. Produced by Lorenza Stella, Maria Carolina Terzi, Carlo and Luciano Stella, who also co-wrote it with director Massimo Ferrari, the documentary tells this extraordinary popular and civic epic through unpublished documents, testimonies, archival materials, animations and sequences from the film “The Four”. Days of Naples by Nanny Loy from 1962. “A historical page that has a contemporary value because it tells how and to what extent the civilian population is always, systematically and deliberately attacked in any conflict,” explains Luciano Stella . But also how capable it is of responding with the strength of its community. A story that reveals the nature of Naples, its ability to endure suffering but also its capacity for rebellion. A heroic, unique side: like the city itself.” Luisa Ranieri, “the voice from within,” gives Naples a voice, based on texts by Maurizio de Giovanni. The animated interludes by Alessandro Rak and Dario Sansone, supported by the soundtrack by Antonio Fresa, tell the stories of the youngest heroes of the time, with the voices of Sara Mormile, Massimo Andrei, Marianna Fontana, Mario Di Leva.
The documentary also contains many interviews: that of the former partisan boy Antonio Amoretti, who died last December at the age of 95; and those to Marisa Laurito, Cristina Donadio, Peppe Barra, Enzo Gragnaniello. The latter and the special performance by Massimiliano Gallo are set in the catacombs of San Gennaro, the belly of Naples that protected the dreams, wishes and hopes of an entire city from the bombing.
