Roberto Saviano has written under various authorial guises, moving from essayist, to novelist and screenwriter when deemed fit. Undaunted by threats made on his life after the publication of Gomorrah, his initial investigation into the Italian mafia, he fixatedly returns to the scene of organised crime in modern day Italy in his writings. This is also the case with La Paranza dei bambini (Competition), his adopted novel now premiering on the screen of the Berlinale. Yet these writings, admittedly created with vengeance and rigour, trigger severe consequences for the author. The question then becomes one of considering the potency of art when it ventures into spaces where lawlessness reigns and returns with the ugliest aspects of human nature for us to view.