What country is the one who must put a 28-year-old who makes films?

Two agents follow the president of the Piccolo America association, which has been animating the Roman squares for years, challenging bureaucracy, neo-fascists and boycotts: the best youth that we cannot defend alone

Valerio Carocci (Photo: Ernesto Ruscio / Getty) Under escort, with two police officers who began to follow him in every move. The story of Valerio Carocci is emblematic of a country that works in reverse: the president of the Piccolo America association in Rome, who a few years ago from the rescue of the eponymous cinema in Trastevere invented the free summer festival from scratch from nothing , has lived them all. First the grotesque ostracism of the Capitoline administration (which today, fortunately, not only in words supports the initiatives), then the bureaucratic delays, last year the blows of the usual neo-fascist jailhouse leftovers to some of the "boys of Cinema America" ​​and finally threats. Last week again an attack against the group's best-known face "by a person close to far-left circles, then reported by Digos" as Repubblica writes.

in Short, you missed nothing of underdevelopment in the political citizen to that group of which he has spoken all over the world, from the New York Times to the Guardian , and that led in Italy – indeed, in the square – the great names of international cinema. Among other things, the most recent request for help had arrived just before the start of the new season, when at the beginning of June, the association had denounced the nth operation of ostracism to his damage: “ The lobby of the distributors and of the chains of multiplex is blocking the concessions on the part of the movie because for three years, wants to force us to make the event a payment ” had written. By putting in the viewfinder definite names: Francesco Rutelli, president of Anica, and the associations of the sector. Then, as always, among a thousand labors, “The cinema in the square” will be on stage this year, up to the 30th of August, at San Cosimato, to Ostia and to the Casale della Cervelletta in Tor Cervara.

To make a long story short, an experience that elsewhere would be consolidated, would have grown, would have created a virtuous system , enriched the cultural life in the course of the year and, why not, created new jobs, ends up every summer on the crest of the misery of the Italian . Always at the limit: today, for the counselor who does not want to chiasso, under the house of tomorrow for the film denied every time because of the threats of those who infest the city.

But the stock exceeds every limit: which country is that country which he is obliged to place under protection a 28-year-old, who organizes festivals in the summer free of charge and are committed to the culture? A person who, with the whole group around him, he never gave up but today it feels on him all the weight of this absurd situation: “ Something seems not to work in this country of ours. It is not right that I should not feel free to walk around the city where I was born and raised or have a cup of coffee, ” says Carocci Republic . Revealing the discomfort, that of a twenty year old that would like to “turn free, free to meet his friends, free to fall in love and declare themselves, without an escort. I freeze just thinking about it , I wonder if it is worth it. It is a difficult time. Who am I to have an escort? I feel guilt ”.

“ I wonder if it is worth it ”, you question God. The key to our defeat is all written in that sentence. Since 2012, the guys of cinema America try to do something good for the city culturally abandoned and brought to its knees by a board of directors unpresentable also under that point of view. Just think of the efforts made to recover the sala Troisi as well should reopen in the next few months. A work invaluable, the times of brutality, cultural , few resources, and even more so of a period of emergency such as this that promises to leave us with a gap wider between those who can live in a certain way, and those who can't afford it, and impoverishing. And instead of years we can not build around them a zone of safety : assaults, threats, and constant administrative challenges, obstacles of every kind and at every level. Other young people who spit on the intercoms of the hallucinations of Ernesto Galli della Loggia : this is the best of youth around us. And we have left it so only to the point that there remains for it to be put under escort.