Mixed By Erry is an Italian biographical film based on the Frattasio brothers who created an empire of selling counterfeit music cassettes all over Italy. It is directed by Sydney Sibilia and is adapted from a novel of the same name by Simona Frasca.
The ensemble cast of the film includes Luigi D’Oriano as Enrico ‘Erry’ Frattasio, Giuseppe Arena as Peppe Frattasio, Emanuele Palumbo as Angelo Frattasio, Fabrizio Gifuni as Arturo Maria Barambani, Francesco Di Leva as Captain Ricciardi, Cristiana Dell’Anna as Marisa Frattasio, Adriano Pantaleo, Chiara Celotto, Greta Esposito and others.
What is Mixed By Erry All About?
The story is set in Naples, in Forcella 1976, and follows the Frattasio family consisting of two parents and three brothers. The father used to collect the empty bottle of bourbon and fill it with tea that looked exactly in colour and sell it at Piazza Garibaldi. He even involved his three sons, as they were the ones brewing the tea and sealing the bottles as brand new.
Among them, Peppe is the eldest brother, Enrico Frattasio who wanted to be a DJ is the middle one and Angelo is the youngest one. Since childhood, Enrico was passionate about music and would work at the appliance store in his neighbourhood, creating mixtapes for his friends and family.
He even finds himself a job at the store as a cleaner and part-time mixer but when the store closes, he decides to try his hands at creating mixtapes as his profession. His DJ career couldn’t take off due to a lack of opportunity and underconfidence but he showed his musical genius by mixing the songs requested by clients on cassettes. He went a step ahead by putting in some tracks in similar genres so that the listener come back to them to get to know more about the song and singer.
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What started as a passion project, soon became bigger than they could have imagined. They had to take out big loans to meet the increasing demand but were even able to pay them back soon, due to the exceeding profits. They were so popular that people even started pirating their cassettes. The main reason for their popularity was being able to provide the latest music in every neighbourhood of Italy with the help of the black market chain and being at the top of every technological advance.
Looking at their success, some criminal lords wanted to do business with them but they were lucky enough to escape their traps. However, that got them noticed by Captain Ricciardi who went all out to stop their illegal business and get them behind bars.
How Did They Get Arrested?
Since they became a big brand, Peppe decide to set up Mixed by Erry SRL company that would give them some legitimacy and even became partners with Arturo Maria Barambani, whose company sold blank cassettes to them. While both companies enjoyed great profits, they even became the highest-earning record label in Italy which threatened the other record labels that were creating original music. In a desperate measure, they petitioned against the piracy of the music they created and the Government ruled out in their favour.
However, the main downfall came when Arturo decided to expose everything about the Frattasio brothers’ company and gave enough off-the-record information to Captain Ricciardi, leading to their arrest for counterfeiting original music without holding right for them. At the court hearing, Enrico pleaded guilty to the crimes imposed on them and the brothers were sentenced to four years in jail.
Where are the Frattasio brothers now?
Although they stopped all the businesses and were stuck in jail, they had earned enough money to live a comfortable life (approx 30 billion Lire). To keep the money safe from getting seized, Angelo makes arrangements to hide the money in cash under a tennis court construction site. So that they can dig it out once they are released. Unfortunately, while in prison a multinational treaty was signed that replaced the Lira with the Euro and that means all their money would have no value by the time they dig it out.
After completing their prison sentence and with no assets whatsoever left, they took up other regular jobs to sustain themselves. Enrico Frattasio now sells gift boxes for a living and occasionally performs as a DJ. During their peak, they sold almost 180 million tapes all over Italy and outside and the brothers still claim that they didn’t think they were doing something illegal, as they were just distributing the music they liked, similar to a DJ.
Mixed By Erry is available for streaming on Netflix.
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