Synopsis
La paranza dei bambini is Roberto Saviano’s big screen adaptation of his new bestseller ‘Paranza dei bambini’ revolving around the ferocious world of budding teenage crime bosses in Naples as they jockey for power. Little by little they gain control of larger areas, fighting against other paranze, forging alliances with old declining bosses.
The story charts the controversial rise of a gang of Neapolitan youngsters – known as the paranza – who were originally recruited to act as hitmen by the Camorra. Fifteen years old fearless boys with innocent nicknames: Maraja, Pesce (fish), Moscio (soft), Dentino (little tooth), Lollipop, Drone - branded shoes, normal families, names of girlfriends tattooed on their skin, no trust in school or institutions. Teenagers with no tomorrow, no hope, not afraid of jail neither death. Their only chance is to bet on everything they possess right now. If they want money, they need to go out and get it. They go off on their scooters, take over the drug market, shoot satellite antennas, defy the godfathers of Naples, spread terror and fear in the city’s streets. These power-hungry adolescents are as trigger happy with a real AK-47 as they are on their PlayStations.
Paranza is a term that belongs to the sea: fishing boats with lights tricking small fishes with no hope to survive. This is a tale of kids darting through life, through adolescences “tricked by light” as a paranza.
Saviano enters relentlessly in this reality of today, opening and shading light over it with a wonderful tale of innocence and subjugation.