PINETAMARE 2022

About forty years ago, Villaggio Coppola Pinetamare, near Caserta, was one of Italy's most exclusive tourist destinations, a small Dubai: it boasted luxurious beachfront apartments, a yacht marina, swimming pools, nightclubs for vacationers, and American military personnel from the nearby NATO base, who rented numerous apartments here. The decline of this paradise began in the late 1970s with the first convictions for building code violations. It worsened in 1980, when the state expropriated hundreds of apartments in Villaggio Coppola to temporarily house the victims of the earthquake. The abandoned houses were later occupied by homeless people or immigrants, some of whom still live there to this day. In recent years, Villaggio Coppola has taken on a "characteristic" state of abandonment and decay, becoming a filming location for movies and TV series such as Gomorra or Dogman by Matteo Garrone. The future of the village remains uncertain.