Umberto Massa presents a Kubla Khan production of

MATER NATURA Directed by

Massimo Andrei with MARIA PIA CALZONE VALERIO FOGLIA MANZILLO ENZO MOSCATO and with VLADIMIR LUXURIA FABIO BRESCIA TERESA DEL VECCHIO SARA CARBONE SHANTI DUCLERCQ ALDO DE MARTINO

FRANCO JAVARONE GINO CURCIONE ERMA CASTRIOTA FRANCO RUGGIERO TINA FEMIANO

and LUCA WARD

WORLD SALES Intramovies Via E. Manfredi 15, 00197 Rome, Italy tel +39 068076157 - fax +39 068076156 [email protected] / www.intramovies.com www.intramovies.org

Pictures can be downloaded from www.maternaturafilm.it Kubla Khan srl, 00185, Roma, viale dell’Università, 27, tel. +39 06.97611300 / fax: +39 06.97611305 www.kublakhan.it / [email protected]

Credits Director

Massimo Andrei

Story

Massimo Andrei and Umberto Massa

Screenplay

Massimo Andrei and Silvia Ranfagni

D.O.P.

Vladan Radovic

Art direction

Carlo De Marino and Luca Servino

Costumes

Giovanni Addante

Music

Lino Cannavacciuolo

Editor

Shara Spinella

Production

Umberto Massa for Kubla Khan Italy, 2005; colour, 35mm, Dobly DTS, 94 min

Synopsis Desiderio, a young transsexual (Maria Pia Calzone), and Andrea (Valerio Foglia Manzillo), a handsome boy who manages a car-wash, fall in love. Desiderio now decides to change her life and starts making plans for the future, when she discovers that Andrea is about to get married. In spite of the groom’s indecision, the wedding takes place and Desiderio is consoled by her friends Massimino, Europa and Suegno, who are planning to leave town and open an organic agriculture centre on the slopes of the Vesuvius that will also be a psychological help centre for men in crisis. After he is married, Andrea returns to Desiderio to declare his love for her again, but she rejects him. The two of them could get together again, but a series of events will change their lives and that of all their friends.

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UMBERTO MASSA, Producer Kubla Khan, opened by Umberto Massa, a graduate in Production Organisation at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, is an independent movie production company established in 1997. They produced first works such as LaCapaGira by Alessandro Piva and Pater Familias by Francesco Patierno, and second works such as Ribelli per caso by Vincenzo Terraciano; in 2002 they coproduced 2002 L’amore imperfetto by Giovanni Davide Maderna and Un Aldo qualunque by Dario Migliardi. They produced the Bungt & Bangt group, street percussionists who use recyclable materials, and the theatrical production Quiz Show. Among executive productions are Si fa presto a dire amore by Enrico Brignano, Ask Me If I’m Happy and That’s Life by Aldo, Giovanni, Giacomo and Massimo Venier. Kubla Khan’s movie vocation extends, geographically, beyond Rome; Umberto Massa managed “36th Parallel”, a section (made up of recent feature films) of the Medi Art International Film Festival in Pantelleria (10-17 September 2005), a review that starts from the enhancement of the wealth of historical, cultural and artistic roots typical of Italy, to expand towards companion Mediterranean countries. In the summer, Kubla Khan intends creating in Pantelleria, a kind of ‘village for cinema’, where the beauty of the island can blend with the beauty of the silver screen. Mater Natura is the only Italian film selected for the 2005 International Critic’s Week. An anomalous film on the Italian panorama, eccentric, colourful, folksy, a bittersweet comedy that, as the director himself says, speaks “of love and social redemption”. A transgender iconography that merges into the theatre roots, and a perfectly matched cast and crew. From the photography of the young Vladan Radovic (Saimir) to the set design by Carlo De Marino (Frivolous Lola, Black Angel, Do It!, Acts of Justice), to the editing by Shara Spinella, already active in France and collaborator of Piscicelli, Manni, Zaccaro, Odorisio, Ruiz, to the extraordinary costumes by Giovanni Addante… and a cast full of versatile personalities: alongside Maria Pia Calzone (the trans Desiderio) are Valerio Foglia Manzillo, Enzo Moscato and Vladimir Luxuria, and other interpreters are Erma Castriota in art H.E.R. (actress and violinist, composer, performer, interpreter of the piece Se avessi te which is part of the sound track), Fabio Brescia (actor, singer, writer, host), Shanti Duclerq, Gino Curcione, Franco Javarone, Teresa Del Vecchio, Sara Carbone, Tina Femiano, Franco Ruggiero, Aldo De Martino and Luca Ward. Almodovar? Corsicato? The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert? To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar? None of all this, Mater Natura has been called a “typical local product”, as is right for a film that talks about a “farm futurism holiday” – as Moscato’s character defines it – which is called Mother Nature.

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Massimo Andrei, director

Born in Naples in 1967, an honours degree in Letters, specialised in anthropology, a graduate from the Università Popolare dello Spettacolo, he is an actor, author and director. He trained and worked prevalently in the theatre, where he was under directors such as Giancarlo Cobelli, Antonio Calenda, Pierpaolo Sepe and Carlo Giuffrè. In 1994 he came to the Nuova Drammaturgia Napoletana. He was a member of Vincenzo Salemme’s theatrical company, and under his direction he acted in the films Amore a prima vista and Volesse il cielo! In the theatre he was author of Tina fai presto, tragedia comica per donna sola, Gli imbecilli, by Andrei-Nanni, cabaret with music, Ruggero il Normanno, a show with 100 actors, musicians and singers, Un momento insieme, texts and songs from the Neapolitan tradition put on stage with the detainees of the Nisida juvenile prison. He wrote, directed and played in radio plays for RAI, on TV he acted in Valeria medico legale with Claudia Koll, Tequila e Bonetti, Una famiglia in giallo with Giulio Scarpati. He collaborated on the texts for the Chiambretti c’è broadcast. He was also the author of texts for music for Peppe Barra and lyrics with music by Nicola Piovani, Lino Cannavacciuolo, Germano Mazzocchetti. Mater Natura is his first feature film.

Cast Maria Pia Calzone, Desiderio

A degree in Letters, an acting diploma from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, she has worked her way up both in the theatre, directed by, among others, Lello Arena, Marco Mattolini, Tato Russo, and in films, with directors such as Vincenzo Terraciano (Acts of Justice and Ribelli per caso), Cristina Comencini (Marriages), Francesco Patierno (Pater Familias), Bruno Buzzi (Shanghai). For television she collaborated with Alberto Sironi (Salvo D’Acquisto, Ad occhi chiusi), Ludovico Gasparini (La guerra è finita), Giuseppe Ferrara (Segreto di stato, Donne di mafia), Carlo Carlei (Padre Pio), Cinzia TH Torrini (Ombre), and worked in TV serials including La squadra, Don Matteo and Distretto di Polizia. Abroad, she interpreted The Sin Eater by Brian Helgeland, Geliehenes Gluck by Ben Verbong, Equilibrium by Kurt Wimmer.

Valerio Foglia Manzillo, Andrea

He made his debut on the silver screen in The Embalmer by Matteo Garrone, alongside Ernesto Mahieux; in 2004 he played in Il tramite, directed by Stefano Reali. In 2006 the film La principessa degli sparvieri will be released, directed by Claver Salizzato, about the life of Eleonora d’Arborea, where Manzillo plays Ugone.

Enzo Moscato, Europa

Theatre actor, author and director; in twenty years of theatre work he wrote and interpreted shows of great invention both for style and sets. Among the numerous recognitions he received are the Riccione/Ater Award for Theatre 1985, the Ubu

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Award for Theatre 1988 and 1994, the Biglietto d’Oro AGIS 1991, the Franco Carmelo Greco Award 2004. He freely translated into Italian theatre texts such as Clockwork Orange, Ubu Re, Tartufo. He also made two CDs as chansonnier. For the cinema he worked in Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician by Mario Martone, Libera by Pappi Corsicato, The Gas Inspector by Stefano Incerti, and with Antonietta de Lillo in Racconti di Vittoria, Maruzzella (episode of The Vesuvians) and Il resto di niente.

Vladimir Luxuria, Massimino Born in Foggia in 1965, living in Rome since 1985, he has worked in various clubs (Piper, Parco del Turismo) and in 1987 recorded a piece he also wrote, Der Traurige. In 1993 he became the artistic manager for the Mario Meli Club of Homosexual Culture and organised Muccassassina, the most famous alternative party in Italy. He was an organiser and performer of Gay Pride from 1994 to 2000. Actor and singer, he works in the theatre (where he staged his One drag show), in musical comedies, dance theatre, readings, in radio (Radio Capital), in the cinema (Every Dumped Boyfriend Is Lost by Piero Chiambretti, We All Fall Down by Davide Ferrario). In TV he is on Buona Domenica, Maurizio Costanzo Show. In the summer of 2005 he hosted the Cocco Bello show on the TV 7 Gold network.

Vladan Radovic, director of photography

Born in 1970 in Sarajevo, he received his diploma in 1999 from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in the course coordinated by Giuseppe Rotunno. Since 1996 he has directed the photography of about twenty films – shorts, features, videos and commercials. He directed the photography of the short films Come ieri by Luciano Federico, Racconto di guerra by Mario Amura and features Rosso come il cielo by Cristiano Bortone and Saimir by Francesco Munzi.

Lino Cannavacciuolo, sound track

Violinist and composer fascinated by experiments and the on-going search for new musical languages, he wrote the music and managed the arrangements of pieces in the latest CDs by Peppe Barra, Guerra and Peppe Barra in concerto, as well as nearly all his theatrical shows, among them the successful rewrite of the Shepherd’s song. He collaborated in the theatre with Roberto De Simone, Luca De Filippo and Peppe Barra, in the musical field with Pino Daniele and Claudio Baglioni. Among his recent production, the music of Mareamarè, a musical dedicated to the Mediterranean which led him to play in theatres of Europe, the Cairo Opera Theatre and overseas. The sound track of Mater Natura is taken from his only two records Aquadia (2000) and Segesta (2002).

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Production notes I have been wanting to make this film for some time, and when I spoke with Massimo Andrei about my idea, he was immediately enthusiastic. Failure in gaining access to any type of state financing didn’t stop me and – as happened for the other films I produced (LaCapaGira, Pater Familias) – I went ahead and made it with my own means, certain of the value of the project. We shot the whole film in five weeks, of which four in Naples and one in Rome, with the difficulties you have when you don’t have a big budget and have a screenplay with an enormous variety of locations, nearly all the costumes to be made, sets that were often sumptuous and many actors to be taken care of. Yes, it was a tiring adventure, but thrilling. And thanks also to the willingness of the artistic and technical cast who shared this adventure with me, I had a lot of fun in the various guises I took on in this project, including organiser and assistant (very tiring!), in case of need, for each department during shooting. Umberto Massa

Director’s notes

Mater Natura, a story of love and social redemption In addition to the eternal desire of singing about love in all its forms, this story came about from my attention to prostitution. An interest in prostitutes and transvestites that derives from the much-discussed fascination of a profession which combines the absolute of sex and death, love and money. This is interest and respect I have for suffering people to whom, for years, with the street units (a form of social assistance) along with other volunteers, during freezing nights, I brought hot tea and other drinks, condoms, medical assistance and legal assistance to the squalid street, to those who, by force or out of need, prostituted themselves. Helping to find the way out. Very little is shown of the real street life in this comic and tragic story, but in order to be able to write this story I had to experience it and learn the basic lesson: people who work the streets at night or who prostitute themselves in other ways, are first of all people who are troubled and we are often faced with extreme sensitivities or a beating heart that is much more active than many others. The transsexual, with a sophisticated physique and psychology, is the emblem of the transition/adjustment of our times. An adjustment that means a passage from one millennium to another, a passage from certain cultural models to others. Being hyperfake, hyper-transformed with respect to the original, and the physical mutation performed by Laser, plastic materials and surgery could mean the passage from the kingdom of man to the machine kingdom, from the Humanism kingdom to the Postnatural kingdom (philosophers have thus defined our epoch). So today, which figures, beyond the transsexuals or transvestites, full of silicone, hormones, disassembled and reassembled for honour and glory to the trend of the day and to the current aesthetic models, can best express the passage? In Mater Natura I did use a current type of “different person”, the transsexual. But the attempt is ancient: is it possible to shrug off our past? (The Lady of the Camellias teaches us…) What does someone coming from a life spent in ambiguous work such as prostitution have to do to return to society with full rights? What do they have to do to achieve “normality”, “social acceptance” one way or another? The main characters in this story are ex-prostitutes or people who try not to prostitute themselves anymore, but they could even be ex-detainees, ex-drug addicts, exanything… the problem is how to get rid of this negative weight of their past, now that they have changed and believe in other principles? Is there a place or a dimension in society where one is not constantly reminded of one’s past and one’s being? Far be it from trying to be a story about the condition of those who are different, this a film that speaks of love and colours, of games, death and tenderness. The fact that I

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would like to define all the young and less young main characters as “heroes of sentiments” and, furthermore, set this story in the city of Naples, the most transvestite of cites, is more than legitimate. In all its manifestations, in its development and in its underdevelopment, this city shows the duplicate, the double life. In this dimension of the person, which is Naples, there is an opening to modernisation and innovations, yet instead of blending with the pre-existing, there is only the close joining of two realities: along with the technological, urban and cultural transformations, the city vigorously preserves the positive and negative signs of the local traditions and anthropological connotations that sink roots in the history and beliefs of this very singular people. With Mater Natura I would like to turn to everyone who ignores certain realities, to those who judge without knowledge, to those who are afraid of what is different in each one of us, to the people of the preceding generations, to those false blind people who do have the possibility to see and don’t look and don’t listen, as well as those who love intensely and to those who are in love with love and, why not?, to children too. I want to tell about the levity and brilliance that springs from characters such as Desiderio, whose lives and adventures often border on the surreal and in the theatre of animation, and I want to lighten the heavy fame of fearful inverts and dangerous terrorists of the “healthy” morality of our “rosy-cheeked” youth. Massimo Andrei I immediately liked the screenplay by Massimo Andrei and Silvia Ranfagni. It is full of literary and film quotes and references, and it moves among various genres… but there is a new point of view, a new personal, correct anthropological look at the world of transsexuals. Enzo Moscato The idea, the thoughts and then the event took off from a trend tableau of the film that the director had made. To illustrate his choice of style, Andrei made an enormous picture with weird images, photos, pieces of magazines, saints and all else that explained his desire perfectly, but above all the choice of style that he imagined for his creation. From that starting point, it was easy for me to understand and then draw these characters. It was like having a continuous reference point, articulated, complex, but present. I stressed even more the moods and emotions of the characters with colours… this is a film where colour tells a story. Nothing was left to chance in the bright chromatism, even things printed on T-shirts seem to be subtitles of what happens in the scene (like Andrea’s T-shirt, the eyes of the odalisque on Massimino’s bathrobe…). I had fun exploring the world of “imagination by antonomasia”, that of the highly colourful characters who in real life are constantly inventing things, and then the fantasy of Nature, where there is the harmony between shades of colour that no one had studied. In the background of my costumes, there were people who knew how to interpret the taste and made my thoughts become reality. An actual laboratory was created where we worked as if we were involved in a great theatrical production, with all the excitement of an imminent debut. Colour, as I said, is the soul of Mater Natura; the film can become an animated cartoon thanks to the colours and to the forms used in the dialogues, as well as in the scenes and costumes. Giovanni Addante, costumes

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Il femminièllo (Neapolitan dialect for an effeminate man) his evolution and his extinction by Massimo Andrei ‘O femmenèll (in the Neapolitan dialect the word is usually in the masculine: il femminièllo, but in strict homosexual jargon it is used in the feminine: ‘a femmenèlla, just as in Spanish there is el mariquita and in jargon becomes la mariquita), was original and unique in its kind. A genetically male person with typically feminine attitudes, movements and needs was well integrated in the life of the working-class neighbourhoods of Naples until the seventies. Until the metropolisation of society started to pulverise the centralised and well localised events of neighbourhood life. Territorial circumstances, anthropological contributions, Naples’ mild climate that doesn’t embitter and harden souls but softens them and makes them sensitive, melodic music like the sound track of good and evil, joys and sorrows, a colourful baroque language with musical sounds that come from French, Spanish, Arabic, the friendliness and cheer typical of people who have always offered hilarity, an inborn folk philosophy that encourages them to make the best of things and solve all the problems and troubles that life puts before them, to adapt or even benefit from them, an ongoing creation of theatrical plays, authors, companies, comics, artists and singers of all types, and other social, cultural and environmental factors are special coordinates that only Naples can boast. These must be kept in mind in order to analyse the origin of this type of homosexual individual existing in the city and in the surrounding areas since the Greek epoch up to today. In his category, ‘o femmenell has no equals anywhere else. So imaginative, colourful, comic, hysterical, sensitive, carnal, bewitching, fragile, depository of old traditions, fond of articulate speech, devoted to metaphors and full of unthinkable similes, yet always helpful, loyal, a keeper of secrets, an accomplice in silence… All of this brought to exasperation, as is his custom. Similar figures, but with fewer coordinates, exist in the Mediterranean area and specifically in Seville, Malaga, Cadiz, or in some of the Provencal ports, Marseilles, Sicily or the Balearic Islands and coastal cities of North Africa. In working-class Naples of the people, so devout and also so pagan, until a few decades ago, before the feminist revolution and the present emancipation of women, ‘o femmenèll, an imitator outstretched towards the physicality of the woman and often more feminine than she, at times was the one who mated occasionally with the young male until he took the sacrament of matrimony. Since it was difficult to have sexual relations with the girl he was in love with, or his bride-to-be or available young unmarried girls, the young male was either initiated by some prostitute he would approach when his store of hormones started to become unsuppressible fires, or he would mate, furtively, with the neighbourhood femmenèllo, who could initiate him better than anyone else since he too was a male on a genital level and knew well the techniques to bring pleasure to the male. Furthermore, if the relationship continued, it acquired the femminièllo’s total gentleness and dedication, because love invariably stepped in since his hypersensitivity was overwhelmingly developed. This type of individual, due to his variegated features and inborn spirit of adaptability, was integrated to all intents and purposes in the life of the working class neighbourhoods: Sanità, Pignasecca, the Spanish quarters, Pallonetto, Borgo Sant’Antonio, Maddalena, Ferrovia. And nearly generally his respect by the community was no different to that reserved to a healer, a vammana1, a confessor or even a saviour always available in case of need. Traditional worlds existed, strongly compact and with a 1

midwife

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series of codes that quickly allowed the integration of every form of difference. It was a community fabric that enclosed the phenomena and vicissitudes of differences, contributing to playing them down. One example to better express how someone “different” was accepted in the Neapolitan community has been given us by an obvious case of primitive and absolutely due voluntary work: a disabled boy from a family living in a basso2. In addition to this boy’s close family nucleus, in unarranged shifts he was cared for by the lady living on the first floor of the building, by the old man who lived in the basso across the street, or he was kept company by the local ragamuffins, and also by other people in the area, so that he was never left alone during his lifetime. Where there were trouble or problems, it didn’t concern just one family, it concerned everyone and that was how it was handled. There was no thought about it, or conscious decisions worked out or choices of voluntary work to perform: action was taken instinctively, customarily, and without reasoning about it at length, and people simply kept the boy company. This type of person wasn’t considered “different”, he was simply one of them who was less fortunate. In the case of the femmenèllo, with the acceptance typical of these people, he grew up and developed within that community, which recognised and declared him such during adolescence, but he was not isolated, he was included, they gave him a role and they would never stop associating with him or supporting him. A document of this integration is the representation of ‘o femmenèll in eighteenth century Neapolitan life in La Gatta Cenerentola (Cat Cinderella) by Roberto de Simone or in La Pelle (The Skin) by Curzio Malaparte. In the first work ‘o femmenèll is loved, requested and fought over by the town women, in the second he is shown while he carries out rites that mock reality. It is nevertheless a borderline case. In the past two decades this community fabric has been pulverised by the great crowds and the cosmopolitanism of the metropolis and this man has ended up more “alone”, more isolated in the chaotic life of the city, often without being to share his problem, his drama with anyone, and in some cases his burden has become unbearable. Soon ‘o femmenèll, ever more removed from the communities of the past, started prostituting himself even more, turning into a transvestite, a figure more ambiguous and reversible, yet more defined in his image, closer to a woman. Then the transvestite evolved even quicker, and today he is no longer the Rosalinda Sprint of Scende giù per Toledo by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi or the Jennifer of Le cinque rose di Jennifer by Annibale Ruccello, no longer imitates Mina and Patty Pravo, doesn’t rival the middle-class woman as was done in the eighties, now he is the sham radicalisation of any form of the figure. After having set out obsessively beyond the threshold of prefigurative femininity, today – like the sacred onnagata of oriental theatre rite – he doesn’t copy but “simulates”, since in real life he has no concrete model to copy, neither empirical nor ideal, instead he must copy the model of the imaginary, to sanctify his perverse articulation liturgically. Except for sporadic instances, he is reduced to a self-portrayal that only celebrates a value of an object and goods for exchange. It is the transsexual, physically and psychologically sophisticated, who is the emblem of transition/adjustment of our times. An adjustment that means the passage from one millennium to another, a passage from certain cultural models to others. His being, hyper-fake, hyper-transformed with respect to the original and the physical mutation made with the laser beam, plastic materials and surgery could mean the passage from the kingdom of man to that of the machine, from the kingdom of Humanism to that of the culture of the artificial, the serial… the post-natural3. Therefore, what figures best express today the passage and the change, if not the transsexuals or

typical Neapolitan housing on the ground floor, generally made up of one room, with the door right on the street. 2

Our epoch has been defined post-natural (the first decades of this new century or maybe all of it) by several contemporary philosophers. 3

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transvestites, siliconed, hormoned, dismantled and reassembled to the honour and glory of the trend in vogue and current aesthetic models? ‘O femmenèll still experienced feelings in a romantic way, he was still a romantic, still human or instinctive or ethnic, so he ended up short-circuiting with present-day society. If we want to expand our view we can find similar anthropological phenomena: in the Maghrebian populations there were and still are effeminate men who have many completely feminine customs and traditions and they are the only ones to have free access to the female world, in the veiled, inviolable female harem, for cultural motives or habits and religious vetoes similar to those of the western society until about thirty years ago. Furthermore they customarily have sexual relationships with young males who are not ready to take wives and in some cultures these same young males can freely make their discoveries in pleasure with their heterosexual peers. What’s more, in the present and past Indian culture, court eunuchs, in addition to being a wealthy social caste, and today a powerful political party, are not necessarily fat and bald as passed on by a certain type of iconography. They are figures halfway between female and male who live their sexuality using completely female practices. Today’s western gay (this word, meaning happy, is used nearly worldwide in its original English), very present in European and United States metropolises, wearing very modern fashions, from the most famous designers to the fashionable brands of clothing, and above all well tested, often with shaven heads or trendy haircuts, often with moustaches or goatees, no longer rival the woman; the rival is himself; he tends towards an aesthetic line that is typically gay, not feminine, like ‘o femmenèll did. The western gay is often muscular, a gym freak, does everything so as not to look “different”, is more of a male than males are. And this and other specific characteristics are why the gay cannot be an object of interest for the vigorous heterosexual male. He has to direct his sexual interest towards others of his species and that is why gays join with gays, while in the world of ‘o femmenèll it was inconceivable for this to happen. ‘O femmenèll would never have dreamed, even distantly, of having sex with another femmenèll. Only with “real” men. Furthermore, gays meet in clubs, exclusive discos, set up cultural associations, parapolitical movements, social battles, make institutional requests and more. ‘O femmenell was poor and more often than not moulded in working-class culture, never “bookish” culture. So, once established that today’s transsexual is the logical substitute of ‘o femmenèll and doesn’t want to hear talk of “difference” (he feels completely a woman and is such to all intents, because with modern general and plastic surgery techniques and with revolutionary endocrinology treatment, physical masculinity totally disappears and there is a female definition tout court); considering that, once this passage is done (the transplant), he is a woman to all intents and purposes, and a conclusion must be drawn: ‘o femmenell, by his not having a well defined identity all his life, by his dress that was never completely female, always half and half, always wearing pants – maybe with flowers but still pants, never a complete transvestite, by his conscious and provocative wiggle of the hips, by his protective, obliging attitude, by his falsetto voice, by his love for mistreated-by-mother-identification, by his preferred myth of the Madonna, and precisely: ‘o femmenell as he existed before the mass urbanisation and transformation of the city into a chaotic, distracted and often cynical metropolis, no longer exists. ‘O femmenèll is dying out to give life to other social figures. His very evolution brought him to his extinction. Since there is no longer a topographic area his people live in, with everything so mixed, since there are no more drawing roms, courts, palaces, alleys that were isolated and protected for the very reason that they were inhabited and frequented only by the numerous families or family clans that protected him and with whom he felt accepted, the genuine figure of ‘o femmenèll no longer blossoms as before. Today there are anonymous apartment blocks where people don’t even know each other and wealthy gentlemen have bought the old houses of the working-class neighbourhoods, transforming them into luxurious apartments. Today his original habitat is gone. With

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greater economic means available to even to the poorer people, with a broader cultural opening, with the desire for self-realisation and individualism prevailing in all the social classes, what was once ‘o femmenèll has taken another course. He has moved and no longer needs the neighbourhood or clan or family. Today his “difference” is heading for the end, because he has seen that his other similars can live as being “different”, they have just changed forever. They have become something else. Totally and completely something else. A young Neapolitan male, who is poor, from a working-class neighbourhood, who feels a female heart and soul inside himself, today can seek therapy as if he had a treatable disease, and be operated and remove the cancer that happened upon him (the male body). He will heal in a few seasons becoming a perfect, healthy woman, without being destined to remaining ‘o femmenèll for life and therefore suffer from his existential contrast: female thoughts and brain imprisoned for life in a body he hates. Today he can easily move from one side to the other. There are no longer the circumstances, the motivations, the social and cultural breeding ground, the psychosocial difficulties for ‘o femmenèll to be born and develop as such. It is a socio-cultural species in extinction.

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