Porto Azzurro, a prison in custody

An attempt to escape, a group of prisoners who take 33 hostages, seven-day negotiations: these are the components of “Porto Azzurro, a prison under confinement”, the documentary produced by Stand by me for Rai Documentari aired Friday 16 September prime time on Rai 2 , which tells for the first time about the events of the prison revolution that took place on the island of Elba in August 1987. The documentary “Italy’s Criminality: When History Makes History”, the first series of rai documentaries about seven modern criminal episodes in Italian history which caused a sensation, opened In public view, broadcast every Friday until October 28 in prime time on Rai 2. Curated by Lorenzo de Alexandres and directed by Jovica Nonkovic, and written by Alessandro Giordano and Emanuele Mercurio, the documentary traces a story that has kept the entire country in suspense, through precious films and photographs. Archives, interviews and exclusives of the kidnapped and black terrorist commando leader Mario Totti. In 1987, the Porto Azzurro prison on the island of Elba was considered a real model: prisoners participated in various activities, both recreational and practical, aimed at their rehabilitation and reintegration into society. The atmosphere inside the institute was calm and the relationship between the inmates and the prison guards was calm and cooperative. All this continued until the morning of August 25, 1987, when a group of six prisoners, led by Mario Totti, broke their rifles inside the concierge of the institute and took the principal and the agents present hostage, with the intent of seizing it. Director’s armored car, head towards the port and try to escape. The failed evasion thanks to an agent who managed to sound the alarm turns into the abduction of 33 people – 5 civilians, 17 prison guards and 11 inmates – and begins a tug-of-war between the kidnappers and the state that will last seven days and be narrated in the documentary with the voice of those who experienced firsthand an event destined to go into memory The collective of the country: the director of the prison Cosimo Giordano, the prison guards Luciano Pavoni and Luciano Bono the social worker Rossella Giazzi, the only woman among the 33 hostages, the probation judge of Livorno Antonita Fiorello, who conducted negotiations from outside the prison with a group of colleagues, and Mario Totti, the head of the commando, who was held in Porto Azzurro for the murder of two police officers and a detainee in the Novara prison (in 1986 Mario Totti was convicted on appeal for the Italicos massacre, the sentence was later overturned by C. Gardens of Cassation in 1987 and finally in 1992). The tension that occurred in those days outside prison is traced through the voices of other staff of the institute, experts and journalists, including the current director of the Tirreno Foundation Stefano Tamburini, then a young reporter, and the historical journalist of Tg1 Paolo Di Giannantonio.