Biùtiful cauntri

Italian fields, roads and buildings are filmed from a moving car. The camera jolts, the music is ominous and you can feel that something fishy is going on. We soon find out why. The Campania region of Italy has no less than 1200 illegal dumps of poisonous waste. The makers asked themselves: ‘How can this happen in Italy and even in Europe in 2007?’ They set off to investigate.
Dumping waste is big business and it earns the Camorra, the local Mafia, lots of money. Local officials and businessmen also have a share of the cake and look the other way. Chunks of asbestos beside a potato field? No one clears it up. Burning car tyres in the field? The fire brigade stays away. Every month three hectares of agricultural land disappear under the rubbish. Even right beside a nature reserve where water buffalo graze, you can find the most dangerous material lying in the verge. Maybe you should remember that when tasting the delicious buffalo mozzarella from Campania.
There are hardly any checks, but there are victims. Sheep breeders see their animals dying of dioxin poisoning. And without being aware of it, people eat poisonous crops. ‘We all die here in silence,’ comments the independent environmental inspector Rafaele. He debates, searches and curses passionately to make the best of it. He is the hero of this bewildering documentary. (EH)