The positive outcome and the support obtained at the event Mediterranean Cocktail of Art, last May 4th, extended our collaborations and allowed us to publish this new release which is enriched by the participation of writers from different parts of the world and by presenting topics of wider interest.
The opening stories tell of talents who have fled from the Middle East and Latin America. It reminds us that war never ends and that the game of the powerful, who always need slaves and consumers, first kills and then rewards.
Likewise, the city of Naples, tortured and enslaved, sometimes by the Neapolitans themselves, savors an ephemeral redemption for the Italian football championship won after 33 years.
The main theme of this issue is Naples itself. The Naples that we describe is that of clichés, experienced by those who live there and told by the tourists who visit it, and it is also the hidden city, which emerges by digging into history and going beyond the surface, the one that encounters its contradictions and experiments both hell and heaven, through the research of the author Angelo Forgione.
After a peek at the trends for Autumn/Winter 2023 from Milan we go to the masters of fashion who come from southern Italy and who have made Italian fashion famous. We also find excellence in cinema. Starting with a comparison between directors from the Iberian Peninsula and Southern Italy; then in the interview with Francesco Di Leva, winner of the prestigious David di Donatello; and Nunzia Schiano, Neapolitan to the core, who from her beginnings in popular music now boasts a brilliant career in theater and cinema. For those who intend to pursue an acting career, we tell the story of Studio Segre, a successful Italian talent agency, of which we interviewed CEO Valentina Segre. This release becomes more social with the interview with the Neapolitan influencer and character Sara Penelope Robin. Despite her “femme fatale” attitude, she declares that femininity has not yet been discovered.
We continue by floating on poetry and music, on the jazz and experimental notes that recall the verses, those of the Irpino Domenico Cipriano, beautiful soul, cultural visionary and community builder, already known overseas for his important work presented, in 2017, at the Center for Italian Studies of New York University, Stony Brook.
Let’s head further south, towards Calabria, a land of fire that still keeps the tradition of popular music alive, made up not only of tarantellas but of stories of love and emigration, of lands torn away and defaced, of protest songs and denunciation, which belong to the whole of Southern Italy and which we listen to in Canzuni, Massimo Ferrante’s latest cd.
Arriving at the center of the earth, from Africa we land in Spain, where we meet Ogun Afrobeat, a small orchestra of great energy that makes you jump with every beat and makes even the stones dance!
We conclude by returning to Naples to give you the key of this wonderful “Treasure Chest to Experience” and to let you taste the delights that belong not only to our city but to the whole of southern Italy.
Ingrid Pagliarulo
Editor
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