It seems that the controversy over the Roman language and “draw” – even incomprehensible to some – used by ZeroCalcare in its fantastic series “Tearing along the Edge”, available on Netflix, is now over.
It may therefore be the right time to open up to a reflection, calm and creative (and therefore little involvement on social networks: but it is a virtue) that are typical of television or cinema on the decentralized neighborhoods and tourist attractions of peripheral locations. .
It doesn’t seem like a waste at all. While millions of euros are poured over ItArt in Italy, pretending that it is actually the “Netflix of Italian culture”, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (Unvato) has published a document of over 50 pages with Netflix (the real one). has prepared. to understand) linked to images on the big screen or platform to analyze forty years of tourism development.
A document published last October and which can be viewed for free here (contactScreen tourism, as it is called in English and which is not entirely wrong to translate into screen tourism (large and small), tells a story that begins in 1984 with the Crocodile Dundee series of films that hit Australia. For tourist visas increased by 40%. and comes with a jump in visitors (+230%) to Harry Potter sites in 2013 and a turnover of 10 million euros for the economy of Northumberland, an extremely peripheral county on the border between England and Scotland.
In fact, the Unvto/Netflix study tends to focus more on the aspect of dialogue between different cultures and the long-lasting attraction of a film or series to a location and its community. Who knows if the Roman neighborhood of Rebibia, never the secondary hero of the tales of Zerocalcare, may have been at the center of such an event. In the past, Belleville (a film was also made in 2013) of the Benjamin Maloussen cycle of books signed by Daniel Pennack. Or, an example closer to the Zerocalcare of the Garbatella district in the years of the resounding success of the television drama “I Cesaroni”. To mention only two cases in which I have also been tempted and tempted to visit two districts – with great satisfaction. And now I am here to see the history and map of Rebibia.
Of course, it’s not easy. It is essential to be able to make a connection between the viewer and that destination: not a place of tourist-commercial interest, but an authentic relationship. And that’s why the infinite districts of Istanbul need real artists like Zerocalcare or Ferzan Ozpatek.
Roberto Guigiani
Coffee enthusiast. Travel scholar. Infuriatingly humble zombie fanatic. Thinker. Professional twitter evangelist.
