Corviale, il serpentone (The snake)

IT 2001, Video, 34 min, OV with English subtitles

Corviale is a 1-km-long housing complex built in the 1970s for 8,500 inhabitants in the south-western part of Rome. It is based on Le Corbusier's idea of social welfare housing as a self-contained city. However, many of the planned facilities in the complex were never completed or even realised. The video focuses on the question of how this utopianly conceived architecture now functions in everyday social life. As a combination of documentary film, music and home video, 'Corviale, il serpentone' portrays the stories and experiences of individual inhabitants, their interests, problems and dreams. They talk about mismanagement, the lacking infrastructure and the common prejudices that characterise Corviale as a ghetto with a high unemployment rate, crime and drug abuse.