A Lost Cult Classic Reborn, Celebrating Italy’s 1970s Torino and Juventus Football Ultras Through the Work of Daniele Segre

More than four decades after it first stunned audiences with its raw, unfiltered look at Italian football subculture, RAGAZZI DI STADIO—which translates as Stadium Boys in English—returns in a powerful new edition. Edited by I Cammelli and curated by Emanuele Segre, Marcella Segre, and Elena Bosio, this reissue resurrects the seminal black-and-white images of late director and photographer Daniele Segre, capturing the fierce beauty of football fandom in 1970s Italy.

In 1979, young filmmaker and photographer Daniele Segre published Ragazzi di Stadio, a gritty, intimate photo-documentary of football fan culture in Italy. Armed with a camera and inspired by a piece of graffiti that twisted a 1968 political slogan—“Power must be working-class”—into something both playful and powerful—“Power must be black and white”—Segre dove into the world of Italian football ultras.

Now, more than forty years later and following Segre’s death in February 2024, his children and collaborators have brought the book back to life. The re-release, restored and expanded, features newly unearthed images from Segre’s personal archive and is accompanied by a QR code linking to three of his documentary films, making the project more immersive than ever before.

“Daniele wasn’t yet thirty when he ventured into the stadium with his camera,” says Emanuele Segre. “He was intrigued by the culture, the slogans, the rituals. That graffiti—Il potere deve essere bianconero—was the spark. He went in curious, and came out with a body of work that shaped the rest of his career.”

The newly published volume not only retains the spirit of the original 1979 edition—long considered a cult collector’s item—but enriches it with contemporary insight and previously unpublished photographs. The restoration process was painstaking, involving digital enhancement of aged film negatives and detailed archival research.

“This has been a cathartic and passionate effort,” says Marcella Segre. “It was a labor of love, not only to honour our father’s work but to honour the entire movement he documented. We wanted to recreate the atmosphere of the first release—with its exhibitions and screenings—but this time for a new generation.”

That tribute has resonated deeply. The Mole Antonelliana, Turin’s iconic Cinema Museum and symbol of Italian film history, is currently displaying the book’s most striking images on its gates. A sold-out screening of Segre’s films at this year’s Turin Film Festival and an immediate second reprint of the book speak to the project’s emotional and cultural impact.

Ragazzi di Stadio is a portal into a visceral, often romanticised era of football fandom. The images are loud even in silence: flares smoking in the background, fists pumping in choreographed chants, faces lit up with tribal devotion. Beyond mere football, Segre’s lens captured a moment when identity, politics, and passion intersected in the concrete temples of Italy’s stadiums.

“For us,” says Marcella, “this book has profound value. It’s more than a restoration—it’s a collective act of remembrance. Of Daniele, of those boys, and of a world where football was both theatre and truth.”

In addition to the book, a striking poster featuring the Ragazzi di Stadio cover is available for purchase, along with a curated selection of Daniele Segre’s iconic black-and-white prints. These high-definition images—some of which have not been publicly available since the original 1979 exhibition—can now be bought in various formats, offering fans and collectors a rare opportunity to own a piece of this landmark visual archive.

With the publication of Ragazzi di Stadio, Daniele Segre’s legacy finds new life—and the stadium boys of yesterday are alive once more. Get your copy here.