Villaggio Coppola or Pinetamare is a hamlet of Castel Volturno (CE) located on the coast near the Bay of Domizia. Its name comes from the Coppola brothers of Casal di Principe who decided to build an ambitious tourist resort comprising 8 towers, residential buildings, villas, banks, shopping centres, at least 3,000 residential units (although licences were only conceded for 500) a dock and a tourist marina in this area only 25km from Naples, in the decade following the 1960’s development of the Bay of Domizia by a company from the Veneto region, and in doing so, committed huge violations of the building code.
In the 1970s the area welcomed up to 15,000 summer residents who would pass the season spending their nights at the disco and days in the pool amidst a vast swathe of sea and beaches and the cool of what was left of one of Italy’s greatest pine forests.
The bradyseism of 1978 and 1983 and the 1980 earthquake in Irpinia brought the utopia of Villaggio Coppola to an end. Approximately 5,000 apartments were seized by the State to house earthquake victims. The buildings were sold off and abandoned by their owners, while the 8 towers – rented for two decades to American military families – were left empty in 1988 and immediately became illegal squats. Neglect and degradation followed. Today, the entire area is the focus of a reclaiming project.
Film Commission Regione Campania
Piazza G. Bovio, 14 — 80133 Napoli
Phone: +39 0814206091
Fax: +39 0817904221
Email: info@fcrc.it
