Placido Rizzotto

A startling opener, of partisan resistance to Nazi brutality, sets the scene for this exploration of personal moral responsibility amidst community oppression. Young Placido Rizzotto returns to Sicily from the mainland and WWII to find a fresh campaign of violence directed against the peasants by the Corleone Mafia. Organising the dispossessed to occupy the land, he himself is inevitably targeted for assassination. The film then moves into a multi-faceted analysis of the 'versions' of his last hours. Crafting both an insightful historical reconstruction and a timeless fable of resistance, writer/director Scimeca has taken a true story to explore the necessary dialogue between individual action and social cohesion. With a powerful central performance from Mazzarella (light years from his delicate Proust for Ruiz's Time Regained), striking photography and an air of authenticity in the mise-en-scène, supporting cast and evocative score, this is regional film-making without a whiff of the provincial.