On the night of last September 6 Willy Monteiro Duarte, an Italian boy whose family has Cape Verdean origins, died after being savagely beaten by some peers, small local criminals, known in the area for their abuse. A tragedy that Vanity Fair does not want to forget, and it does so by dedicating the cover to Willy. "Mai più" is the title of the cover of issue 38 on newsstands from 16 September, on which the boy's face stands out: the photo of a large mural created by the famous artist and street artist Ozmo in Paliano (Frosinone) the town where Willy is grown up.
A tribute that Vanity Fair wanted to dedicate to him, his family and his friends. To understand who Willy really was – little told in the news, who prefer to focus on his executioners – we went to his places and collected the thoughts of those who knew him. "He gave happiness without anyone asking him," said a friend at the end of the torchlight procession in his memory. "For Willy's death not to be in vain, we have to sit at an ideal immense table and look each other in the face, tell each other that we have failed as politicians and as parents, and only get up when we have an idea of how to correct things," he said. known as Domenico Alfieri, mayor of Paliano.
And since, as the director of Vanity Fair Simone Marchetti writes in his editorial: "The murder of Willy is only the last episode, one of the cruelest, of the black shadow of Italy, a dark area of history that is always there, always present to hide a ferocious beast, hatred, never dormant but ready to take over suddenly, entering the scene to collect its blood price ", we asked the director Enrico Mentana to reflect on the roots of hate, the same, behind the death of Willy and that of Maria Paola Gaglione, rammed on a scooter by her brother who wanted to punish her for her relationship with Ciro, a boy born into a woman's body in which he did not recognize himself. Director Daniele Vicari, who wrote an investigative book on the death of Emanuele Morganti, who passed away in 2017 in circumstances similar to those of the boy, tells us about his emotions in seeing the story repeating itself and trusts to see a sign of hope in the mobilization which followed Willy's murder. Finally, the brothers Fabio and Damiano D'Innocenzo, who were able to bring the suburbs to the big screen with La terra dell'abbecento and Favolacce, speak of the immense courage of being Willy that none of us has and how, even if only admitting to living in the fear, is the first step towards change.
The mural by Ozmo, who has decided to donate his compensation to charity, will be unveiled and delivered to the citizens on Tuesday 15 September at 9 pm during a public meeting attended by the director Simone Marchetti and the Mayor of Paliano.
The mural will also be unveiled in a direct IG live conducted by the editor of the weekly. Furthermore, on the occasion of the release of the Vanity Fair newspaper, it organizes 5 live Facebook round tables (also available on the IGTV and YouTube platforms) with 5 guests of honor who invite some exponents of the various communities to talk about hate online and offline, focusing on themes of Racism, Homophobia, BodyShaming, Misogyny and Discrimination related to ethnicity and religion.
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