From January 12th (but the first episode will be previewed on RaiPlay already on Saturday 10th) Rai 1 opens the new television year with The Principala four-part miniseries that brings Luisa Ranieri back to center stage after the success of Lolita Lobosco. This time, however, no police investigations: the actress plays Eugenia Liguori, a school director who chooses to face one of the most difficult challenges in the country, school dropout. The character is freely inspired by Eugenia Carfora, the symbolic principal of Caivano, who for years has been fighting against the abandonment of children in areas marked by poverty and crime.
The story takes shape in the Anna Maria Ortese Institute in Naples, a school located in the heart of one of the largest drug dealing squares in Europe. Here absenteeism is very high and resources are scarce, but for Eugenia this is not a sentence: it is a mission. Her arrival breaks the balance of resignation, because the principal doesn’t just fill out paperwork, but takes to the streets, knocks on doors, goes to look for the students one by one. The school thus becomes a safeguard of legality, a place where education is also protection and the future.
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A project born from reality
The idea of telling this story was born from the impact of a television documentary dedicated to the real Eugenia Carfora, which deeply affected Luisa Ranieri and Luca Zingaretti, here as creator and co-producer. From that emotional encounter was born a series that combines fiction and reality, without sugarcoating the difficulties. The direction is entrusted to Luca Miniero, while the production is handled by Bibi Film TV and Zocotoco together with Rai Fiction, guaranteeing an attentive and respectful look at the theme.
A cast and a choral story
Alongside Ranieri, the cast includes Alessandro Tedeschi, Ludovica Nasti, Francesco Zenga, Ivan Castiglione and many others. In particular, the figure of Vittorio stands out, an Italian teacher from the North who chooses to support the unorthodox methods of the principal. The boys, the true protagonists of the series, embody a youth suspended between street and school, between temptations and possibilities.
A series that speaks to today’s Italy
The Principal it is not just a fiction, but a civil story that focuses on the value of education as a tool for social redemption. In a country where dropping out of school remains an open wound, the series reminds us that even a single person, armed with determination and courage, can change the destiny of many.
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