28/03/2006

"That is all I’ll say". These are recurring words in the interviews that members of various institutions and the police force agreed to give Marco Amenta, director of Il fantasma di Corleone (The Ghost of Corleone), a docu-fiction covering the 40 years of hiding of Mafia don Bernardo Provenzano, considered to be the top boss of the “Cosa Nostra”.

The landscape outlined by Il fantasma di Corleone, through a puzzle made up of dramatic reconstructions (the boss’ rise, his run from the law and the police operations), testimonies and archive material, is sinister and disturbing. "This film is useful because it is goes against the social current", said prosecutor Giancarlo Caselli during its screening. "Today, the Mafia is a strong and solid organisation, but few talk about it because it has entered the shadows".

Don Luigi Ciotti, president of the “Libera” Association, which gives young Sicilian businesspeople lands confiscated from the Mafia, says that these days Mafiosos even create anti-Mafia associations, "to control the work of those fighting against the Mafia".

Il fantasma di Corleone – produced by Simonetta Amenta (the director’s sister) of Eurofilm, co-produced by Mediterranea Film and Arte Francia, in collaboration with ARD-Germany and with the support of the MEDIA Programme – will be released on approximately ten screens in Italy on March 31, through Pablo, Gianluca Arcopinto’s distribution company. It will then air on RAI, albeit in an edited version to meet format requirements, after having been shown on several international broadcasters.