Crime, family saga and a colorful narrative are the salient features of «Maria Corleone», fiction produced by Taodue and Clemart and directed by Mauro Mancini, which returns tonight in prime time on Canale 5 with the third and penultimate episode. A series that continues the theme of mafia stories, inaugurated by Taodue herself with «Anti-Mafia Squad – Palermo today» and «Rosy Abate», to propose a new and controversial female character, Maria, given the face of the Roman actress Rosa Diletta Rossi. Maria, a young stylist from Palermo who has lived in Milan for years, is induced, following the attack on her father Don Luciano Corleone (Fortunato Cerlino), an entrepreneur with a mafia smack, and the killing of her brother Giovanni (the Ragusan Vladimir Randazzo), to abandon her new life and her prosecutor boyfriend Luca (Alessandro Fella) to embark on the path of revenge and hold the reins of the controversial family activities. In a mostly Sicilian cast there are also two talents from Messina, Federica De Cola And Beatrice Barrilàand a Calabrian, from Cosenza Pierluigi Misasi.
Back on TV after «Vite in fuga» (Rai1) and participation in Bellocchio’s «Esterno Notte», in «Maria Corleone» De Cola is Sandra, sister of the protagonist and administrative director of a clinic where some family issues are “cleaned up” and where her surgeon husband Antonio works, played by Emmanuele Aita from Palermo. «Sandra is entangled in every way with her family – says the actress -. She is dominated by Antonio’s betrayals, she is an unhappy woman, with a strong desire for a motherhood that never came. When the opportunity to raise Maria’s child presents itself, she knows she is putting herself in a delicate situation but she accepts the agreement, becoming an integral part of her life, to the point of defending like a lioness what she considers the she’s her child.”
The harmony with Aita is fundamental. «We have a common theatrical background. This allowed us to create the respective spaces to build Sandra and Antonio and their facade relationship, without love.”
Born in Catania but always from Messina, already in the cast of the film «Bad Conscience», Beatrice Barrilà is Nina, girlfriend of Stefano (Vittorio Magazzù from Palermo), Maria’s younger brother: «She is a problematic girl with a strong addiction to drugs , who helps Stefano manage a private radio station, from which the young man denounces the entire mafia environment in Palermo. A much more complex role than in other productions where I played the ex-girlfriend or the girl next door, Nina has very dark shades.”
In the role of Don Tano Tommasino, Luciano Corleone’s rival, Pierluigi Misasi from Cosenza, seen in the first Amazon Original series «Bang Bang Baby». «Don Tommasino aspires to a higher role in the mafia hierarchy – he tells us –. He is a double agent and between him and Don Corleone there is a race to the bottom, to the worst, which for them is the best.” A negative character who, like all “bad guys”, must be understood in the way of thinking, to interpret him best. «If you are born into a criminal family you are used to living in a series of negative values which for you are values – he adds -. Falcone was just talking about entering their mentality to find their weak points and defeat them. In part the actor also does this job when he has to represent them.” Also in the cast are the Palermo actress Aglaia Mora (Rosa, the protagonist’s mother), Gaetano Aronica from Agrigento (the deputy commissioner Carmine Cutrera), the Giarrese Bruno Torrisi (the lawyer Corrado Salemi) and the Bagherese Orio Scaduto (the mafia boss Saro Zerilli ). Special participation of Tosca D’Aquino in the role of Santa Nisticò, member of the ‘Ndrangheta clan of the same name.
