Ovid, the sheep and the VIP resort. The true story behind the film “That’s the way life goes”

His name was Ovidio Marras, he died in January last year at the age of 93, all his life he was a shepherd and farmer in Capo Malfatano, municipality of Teulada, opposite the Tuerredda beach, one of the most beautiful areas of south-western Sardinia.

His story is the one told in Riccardo Milani’s film, “Life goes like this”, which opened the Rome Film Festival. The places are the same, in the cinema the protagonist is called Efisio Mulas. But Ovid’s true story is more intriguing and evocative than the film’s script, just as the real-life “bad guys” didn’t have the likeable scoundrel faces of Diego Abatantuono and Aldo Baglio.

The maxi project in Sardinia

It all started in the early 2000s, when a group of real estate entrepreneurs, united under the acronym Sitas (Sardinian Agricultural Initiatives Company) decided to build a resort of over 150 thousand cubic meters in Capo Malfatano: on approximately 700 hectares of greenery and Mediterranean scrub, a hotel complex would be created, villas with swimming pool, residences, private gardens, golf course and associated services. A mega resort that should have been the pearl of the Costa Dorada, the equivalent of the Costa Smeralda moved to southern Sardinia. Behind Sitas there was the elite of the Italian brick and mortar sector: the Benetton group, Toti-Lamaro, the Toffano group and Sansedoni spa, the real estate arm of the Fondazione and Banca Mps, which at the time had Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone as vice president. If these names weren’t enough, Sitas had also found who would have to manage that mega-complex: the Mita resort of Emma Marcegaglia and Andrea Donà delle Rose, who already managed the Forte Village a short distance away, with the other real estate developer Massimo Caputi in partnership.

The green light from the Municipality, the resistance from Ovid

An investment worth hundreds of millions of euros, projects already ready and authorized by the Municipality of Teulada, which crashed against the stubbornness and resistance of Ovidio Marras. A man halfway between Disney’s Dynamite Bla (irascible old man who fires his rifle at Scrooge McDuck, every time the gazillionaire asks him to sell him his farm) and Melvillian’s Bartleby the scribe, who offers an unyielding “I’d rather not” to every request from his employer. Ovidio had his “furriadroxiu”, a sheepfold where he lived with his flock of sheep and cows, in Capo Malfatano, with a civic use of passage to take the animals to graze along the path that led to the beach. The resort was also planned on that land, on the path there would have been the hall, and behind the sheepfold there was even Benetton’s villa. Obviously Sitas makes an offer to Marras and also raises the price to considerable sums for a piece of land. “I’m not selling – is the shepherd’s decisive response – this is the land of my father and my father’s father and I’m keeping it. You around here have no right to build.”

The legal battle

From there a judicial story begins, which lasts several years, with Italia Nostra taking the side of Ovidio Marras. He appeals against the constructions started on his land, Italia Nostra investigates the authorizations granted to Sitas and discovers that the environmental impact assessment on the mega resort is missing. Capo Malfatano falls within the areas protected by the Urbani decree, the attempt to circumvent the road and the prohibitions of the regional landscape plan, dividing the project into five lots to try to reduce the impact, was not successful. In 2010 Ovidio won his first case, in 2012 the TAR canceled the landscape and building authorizations issued by the Municipality. The Council of State and the Supreme Court confirm the sentences, definitively rejecting the Capo Malfatano project.

The effects of the battle on the Costa Dorada are like an avalanche for many of the members. Sitas was declared bankrupt in 2018, behind the Tuerredda beach there are still the ruins of the resort. Nobody wants to shoulder the costs of demolition and debris removal, the Municipality and Region, which have their share of responsibility, still don’t know how to untangle the mess. Sansedoni spa was in liquidation and was taken over by an international fund. Also in crisis due to the “poisoned apples”, such as the Sardinian project, left by the former partners Toti-Lamaro, liquidated with golden valuations of the properties brought into the company. The troubles of the MPS Foundation and the Bank were already much worse after the billion-dollar capital increases in an attempt to plug the hole in the accounts, opened by the unfortunate purchase of Antonveneta. Emma Marcegaglia in Sardinia was also left empty-handed at La Maddalena: she was supposed to host the G8 in her resort, Prime Minister Berlusconi diverted the world’s leaders to L’Aquila. The Benettons’ problems, unfortunately, are well known.

What did Ovidio Marras do after his victories in the trials? For a few years he continued to live in his sheepfold, until his nephews convinced him for health reasons to move to the village. Those who knew him and negotiated with him to buy his land do not define him as an environmentalist hero who defended Sardinia from concrete flows. Rather like a stubborn loner, who had no friends in Teulada and couldn’t even be convinced by his family. By refusing to sell he wanted to demonstrate to his fellow villagers who didn’t respect him what he was made of. He succeeded to the point of becoming a movie star.