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By Roberto Saviano

They flunked Toto and Simone, the two actors who appeared in both the theatre and film versions of Gomorrah. President Napolitano, who went to see the actors on the opening night of the stage performance, shook hands with the whole cast, one by one, and complimented them on their work. At the Cannes Film Festival, the film was awarded one of the three most important prizes: the Grand Prix of the Jury. But the teachers at the Carlo Levi Middle School in Scampia chose to flunk the boys anyway.

Waiting for me on the tarmac at Cannes are the men from the French special services, two bulletproof cars and three motorcycles. Right away they let me know that they do not usually accompany movie stars or divas. “Private companies do that,” the head officer tells me with the help of another agent who translates for him in a strange Neapolitan dialect tinged with a French accent. “I learned Italian from the music of Pino Daniele,” he says by way of explanation, adding that he was also an interpreter for Vincenzo Mazzarella, a Camorra boss from San Giovanni di Teduccio who was arrested in Cannes not long ago. They are also quick to let me know that the Mafia love Cannes. Luigi Facchineri, a boss of the ’Ndrangheta, the mafia organisation based in Calabria, lived in Cannes from 1987 until his arrest in 2002. The Mafia has investments in the major hotels, beach resorts and restaurants of the city, and also provides enough cocaine for all the vacationers, tourists and festival people that now swarm La Croisette.

Lined up on the pavements outside the hotels are hundreds of people, their cameras, mobile phones and camcorders in hand. But they’re only interested in the Americans. Catherine Deneuve walks by, then the Serbian film-maker Emir Kusturica — a few cameras click and whirr. Little interest.

After the press viewing of Gomorrah we receive our first huge round of applause. I dedicate the film’s success to Domenico Noviello, the businessman who was killed shortly before our arrival in Cannes. Outside, the secret service are waiting on their motorbikes. The agents are tense and yet, at the same time, always ready to tell me more stories about the worst criminals of the worst criminal organisations that have come to invest in the Côte d’Azur. And here I am, standing in front of the crème de la crème of cinema critics, next to those who gave life to this film, including the children of Naples. The most talkative one is Ciro, nicknamed Swee’pea by his uncle because he resembles the child that Popeye and Olive Oil received as a package in the mail. Ciro works as a fruit vendor at the Pignasecca market in the historic centre of Naples. It’s a tough job. The journalists pound him with questions. “What would you do if you weren’t a fruit vendor?” He replies drily: “I’d be a barman.” He understands what they’re getting at. “No way! I’d never join the Camorra. My mother is still crying because she saw me get killed in the film. Just imagine what it would be like if it really happened!” He gets a round of applause.

Ciro and Marco – who are older than the other two – come from the low-income neighbourhoods of central Naples. Toto and Simone are from Scampia, so for them life has been a little easier: their family situations, while not idyllic, are less difficult than the older boys’.

For the younger children, the play, and then the film, was not supposed to be just a holiday from a life that, even at the age of 12 or 13, had already been mapped out for them. No, this was their big chance to see what it felt like to step into a different world or at least to imagine the possibility of its existence.

No one ever dreamed of anything for these children. But even so, they tried to show off their qualities so that someone would dream of a different life for them. They aren’t model students. They can’t even sit still in their chairs and do their work. But that’s just one side of them. The teachers who failed Toto and Simone simply can’t accept they did their best work out of school.

In the morning I want to enjoy my breakfast in the Hotel Majestic, but the agents rush me through it. I order a glass of juice, and a girl asks if she can sit down. The agents have to frisk her and I’m embarrassed by it all, but since I do not speak a word of French I do not know how to excuse myself. She asks me about my book and then says, “If you’re not too busy, I’d like to spend the day with you. All you have to do is pay my taxi fare back to Nice – 800.” That’s when I understand. Later I ask a barman, who turns out to be from my part of the world, and he spells it out for me: “All the girls you see in the main hall are hookers.” They look like the daughters of lazy, pot-bellied men, and always seem a bit stoned. It’s sad to watch them sidle up to the owners of the yachts anchored in the harbour.

After the official showing of the film we are taken out for dinner. The bodyguards accompany me into a reserved room where we all toast the movie. Suddenly, I realise that I have not been in a situation like this for two years, and I freeze. I’m not used to it. I’m a statue, not used to eating with anyone other than my bodyguards.

A few days later I’m back in Italy, in the apartment that they’ve chosen for me. It’s hot, and I can’t go out. I have a bottle of beer in front of me. I get a call from Tiziana from Fandango, the producers of the film. She’s crying.

Extract from "Beauty and the Inferno"