The other mother

Andrej Longo takes us back to Naples and tells us about the city’s men and women – grim and hurt, cruel and giving.

16-year-old Genny works in a bar on Via Toledo; he likes playing football and showing off on his moped. Tania’s a year younger and still goes to school; she likes pink trainers and fish sticks. Genny’s mother is forty but looks a lot older; she spends her time hemming jeans, charging 80 euro for 20 hems; every now and then she ends up on oxygen. Tania’s mother is a policewoman; she’s lean and buffed and is definitely not one to be messed with. One Saturday afternoon, on a street of the Vomero, Genny’s and Tania’s lives cross tragically – and a mother decides to take revenge. Her own way.