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Vincenzo Muccioli was an entrepreneur who decided to "help" junkies detox and opened a community, close to Rimini on the Adriatic coast. The story begins at the end of the 70s, with the community growing slowly and steadily. Vincenzo was a big man (1 90 tall/ 6ft 2in) with an even larger personality. He attracted a lot of attention, both because at the start of his project he accepted all the junkies who asked and because he had powerful friends. The junkies got detoxed fast and brutally and then they were employed into all sorts of rural and artisanal projects within SanPa.
Within a short time, the community grew exponentially and Vincenzo could not cope anymore to deal directly with all his "guests", as he used to. Trouble started in mid-80s.. The number of guests grew from a hundred to a thousand, Muccioli turned into a media star who travelled around Italy and Europe to advertise his project. He received conspicuous fundings and kept breeding thoroughbreds (a passion of his) while increasingly delegating the daily humdrum to his collaborators.
In the meantime, in Rimini a few ex-junkies denounced Muccioli's rather harsh detox methods. Several youngsters claimed to have been chained and detained in small, dirty cold rooms to "speed up" the detox process. Those who run away where taken back by Muccioli himself or his collaborators. Muccioli always claimed that he had the best interest of the junkie and the junkie's family at heart. The families loved him. Despite this, he ended up in trial. Further trouble of more serious nature was brewing. Two guests committed suicide, AIDS started to decimate the ranks and finally a guest was murdered and his body removed for the community and dumped in Napoli.
From the interviews you get a balanced approached: Mucciold's son obviously defends his father; some of his best and closest friends (journalist Red Ronnie and therapeutic manager Boschini) do the same; one of the community PRs stands on middle ground, admitting to trouble but also to some positive impact; several other ex-guests are more negative in their approach, Delogu (Muccioli former driver ) being the most ambiguous witness. Delogu actually blackmailed Muccioli with a tape on the subject of the murder that took place in SanPa, got his ransom but subsequently also got arrested.
The story ends with Mucciold's untimely death several months after having being acquitted from the murder trial. Most of the junkies'families see him as a hero, some see him as a villain and you can make up you mind on where you stand. PS allegedly the documentary was not received well in SanPa...
score 6/10
dierregi 10 January 2021
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6461510/ |
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17-1-2021 11:21:03