Suburra

Main characters: Aureliano Adami, Alberto “Spadino” Anacleti, Amedeo Cinaglia, Sara Monaschi, Samurai, others.
Country of origin: Italy
Main location: Rome

Creator: Giancarlo De Cataldo and Carlo Bonini
Born in: Taranto (De Cataldo), Rome (Bonini)
Born on: February 7, 1956 (De Cataldo); March 4, 1967 (Bonini)
Nationality: Italian

Literary series started in: 2013, Suburra
Original language: Italian
Publisher: Einaudi (Torino, Italy)
Number of books (original editions): 2
Latest title published in: 2015, La notte di Roma (Eng. transl.: The Night of Rome)
Translations: Yes

Film Title: Suburra
Film produced in: 2015
Producer: Cattleya, RAI Cinema, La Chauve Souris
Director: Stefano Sollima
Script: Carlo Bonini, Giancarlo De Cataldo, Stefano Rulli, Sandro Petraglia
Transnational distribution: Yes

Television series title: Suburra – la serie (Eng. transl.: Suburra – Blood on Rome)
Television series started in: 2017
Producer: Cattleya, RAI Fiction, Netflix
Number of seasons: 3
Latest season broadcast: 2020
Transnational distribution: Yes (distributed to 190 countries)

Case study rationale

Suburra – La serie (Eng. transl. Suburra: Blood on Rome) is an Italian web television series. The first season was released on Netflix on October 6, 2017. The show is a prequel to the film Suburra (Stefano Sollima, 2015), based on the 2013 novel by Giancarlo De Cataldo and Carlo Bonini. Suburra was Netflix’s first Italian-language original television series, produced by Cattleya (Romanzo criminale, Gomorra) in association with Rai Fiction.
The events narrated in Suburra – a title derived from an area of Rome that, in ancient Roman times, was a crowded lower-class district – are inspired by the “Mafia Capitale” investigation and focus on power clashes and corruption in the Roman (and Italian) society, showing links among organized crime, politicians and churchmen. While at first Netflix acted as a ‘simple’ distributor for La casa de papel and Peaky Blinders, with Suburra it played a key role in producing the show. This makes it a good example of the recent wave of European crime series that are addressed for both a local and an international audience from their inception. The relative international success of Suburra and its obvious links with other Italian and European series make it therefore a perfect case for the study of the reception of this specific kind of crime drama. The focus on the Sinti community, the depiction of homosexuality, and the increasing role of active female characters are also a consequence of Netflix’s involvement in the design of the series. Thanks to these traits, especially the inclusion of homosexual and Sinti characters which do not usually feature in mafia-related films and television, or not in leading roles, the series gained a considerable acclaim

Online research resources

Watch

Suburra – la serie Official Trailer [Eng. sub.]

Interview with Filippo Nigro, Claudia Gerini, Francesco Acquaroli [in English]:

Giancarlo De Cataldo talks about Suburra and Romanzo Criminale in a conference at Luiss University in 2013 [in Italian]:

Explore

Map showing the European Transmedia Series by Country of Origin in the Atlas section on the DETECt Portal

Map showing the Number of Transmedia Series by Main Locations in the Atlas section of DETECt Portal

Map showing the Number of Transmedia Series by Original Medium and Country of Origin in the Atlas section of the DETECt Portal

Map showing the catalogue of European crime movies (1989-2018) on IMDB in the Atlas section of the DETECt Portal

Browse

Alessandro Borghi’s page on Cineuropa

Suburra’s fan wiki

Read

All images and videos are copyright to their respective owners and are protected under international copyright laws.

All the images and videos on this page are not hosted on the DETECT Portal server but are only inserted as links.