A poetic thriller, where the search for truth and the discovery of one’s roots become a pretext to underline the importance of memory and good justice. Eight years after «I Cantastorie», the director from Pachino Gian Paolo Cugno returns to the cinema with «Family Investigation», in theaters from tomorrow with Marconi Entertainment, in collaboration with Officine UBU.
Shot alternating color with black and white, present and past, the film tells the story the true story of the Spadas, a peasant family from Floridia (Syracuse), whose male members, at the end of the nineteenth century, were unjustly convicted of the murder of Baron Dramonterrerich landowner, and locked up in the Asinara prison. The investigation is carried out by the young American Nick (Michael Ronda), who leaves from Hartford, Connecticut, for Sicily to discover the truth about the family members of his grandmother Maria (Maribella Piana from Catania), a centenarian who emigrated to America in post-war period and daughter of Nicolò (the Floridian Cristiano Torneo as a young man, Antonio Alveario from Messina as an elder), the only survivor of the harsh imprisonment. A tortuous path, made up of silence and obstacles, during which the young man will meet the old writer Achille Marotta (the Lentinese Pippo Pattavina) and the archivist Daniela (the Acese Roberta Rigano).
Based on true events, the film reports an episode of bad justice told to Cugno by Gaetano and Ettore Indomenicoproducers of the film with Marconi Entertainment, entrepreneurs from Floridia who have made success in America in the construction sector.
«Gaetano and Ettore – says Cugno – wanted to make films and after seeing my films they contacted me to tell me this strange story, which however needed to be explored in depth in order to write a good screenplay». Like the protagonist Nick, the director thus began a long work of research and documentation which led to the discovery of all the pieces of the story: «At the Court of Noto I found the trial books and little by little, with the help of some researchers, I managed to track down the right documents. It emerged that everyone in the village knew of the Spadas’ innocence, but, as often happens, stories of this type become legends because people die or emigrate.”
A distant story but still profoundly significant today: «Behind every house in the villages of Southern Italy there are stories of people who no longer exist – continues the director – Nick says in the film that the memory of men survives their bones. The theme of “Family Investigation” is precisely the memory of the past and of injustices that still occur today, in which the powerful have the power of life and death over poor people.”
But the plot is also a pretext to show an ancient Sicily, full of views and art to be rediscovered. Shot in Hartford for the American part, the film was in fact made in Floridia (Piazza Umberto I), Noto (Church of Sant’Agata and Ex Court), Portopalo di Capopassero (Isola and Grotta Corruggi), Palazzolo Acreide and Canicattì. Numerous cast, mostly Sicilian, which includes, among others, Marcello Mazzarella from Erica (Sebastiano Spada), Manuela Ventura from Catania (Donna Anna, Sebastiano’s wife) and the Floridian actors Erica Carpinteri (Vincenza Spada), Luca Mangiafico (Pietro Spada ) and Sebastiano Lo Monaco, the Syracuse actor from Floridia who died last year at the age of 65, in his last performance as the Baron Dramonterre. Also in the cast is Mariano Rigillo (The Judge). Director and cast will present the film on Friday at the E Planet cinema in Canalicchio (Catania), on Saturday at the Odeon in Avola and on Sunday at the Politeama in Pachino.
