Davide Mastropaolo

A child of war, born to a Neapolitan girl and an American soldier after World War II, James Senese was raised in the outskirts of Naples, of which he witnessed the transformation from countryside to suburb. In a fifty-year-long career, he has searched for an identity in a changing world, pouring his conflicts into his music. The documentary paints a portrait of the man and the artist, tracing the beating heart of his trajectory back to the formation of the band Napoli Centrale in the early Seventies, and investigating the latest evolution of that musical endeavor.

Warehouse employee by day, Elvis impersonator by night, Sandro's performance at a nightclub makes such a big impression, that an unlikely manager offers him a tour of China. Torn between the dream of a lifetime and his emasculating Neapolitan mother, Sandro will have to face the most difficult thing for him: making a choice.

Between segregation and cosmic revelation, The Magic City traces the birth of Sun Ra, where a city becomes myth and a man, a galaxy.

A child of war, born to a Neapolitan girl and an American soldier after World War II, James Senese was raised in the outskirts of Naples, of which he witnessed the transformation from countryside to suburb. In a fifty-year-long career, he has searched for an identity in a changing world, pouring his conflicts into his music. The documentary paints a portrait of the man and the artist, tracing the beating heart of his trajectory back to the formation of the band Napoli Centrale in the early Seventies, and investigating the latest evolution of that musical endeavor.

Warehouse employee by day, Elvis impersonator by night, Sandro's performance at a nightclub makes such a big impression, that an unlikely manager offers him a tour of China. Torn between the dream of a lifetime and his emasculating Neapolitan mother, Sandro will have to face the most difficult thing for him: making a choice.

Between segregation and cosmic revelation, The Magic City traces the birth of Sun Ra, where a city becomes myth and a man, a galaxy.