How could the mafia boss stay out of Italy for so long, asks Venice film

VENICE (Reuters) – Italian investigators knew a lot about mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro – his love of designer clothes, video games, Rolex watches and his long list of victims.

But they never seemed to know where he was until his arrest outside a Palermo clinic in January 2023, ending three decades on the run. He died of cancer months later, refusing to spill the beans about his criminal empire.

“Sicilian Letters,” which premiered Thursday at the Venice Film Festival, chronicles a brief period of Denaro’s time as a fugitive in his native Sicily and questions the extent to which the Italian state was really intent on capturing him.

“How is it possible that a country like ours, which can boast a culture admired by the whole world… has been unable to resist a world of such mediocrity and allowed a man to escape capture for years?” said veteran Italian actor Toni Servillo, who stars in the film.

The film, directed by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, is inspired by the ‘pizzini’ – the notes distributed by messengers that Denaro used to keep in touch with the outside world while hiding in safe houses.

A bunch of his messages were found in 2006 when police arrested the then leader of the Sicilian Mafia, Bernardo Provenzano.

“His human side comes out in his pizzini,” actor Elio Germano, who plays Denaro, said at a news conference.

“We are simply talking about a human being, who is capable not only of the worst cruelty, but also of gentleness, sensitivity and certain ethics. This is disturbing, because it means that within each of us lies the potential to become such a person,” he said.

Servillo plays a local school principal who is Denaro’s godfather and is persuaded by the police to help find the mafia boss in exchange for clearing up his own legal troubles. He’s a fictional character, but is inspired by an exchange of pizzini between the feared mafiosi and a mayor from his hometown.

“This mayor seemed to be a typical example of a certain type of character from Italian comedy,” said co-director Grassadonia.

While the film was in pre-production, it was announced that Denaro had been arrested. This brought a lot of new information about the man, forcing the team to re-examine their profile of him.

“Luckily, we realized that the portrait we had developed, not only of him but of the world spinning recklessly around him, was quite accurate, so we continued our work,” Grassadonia said.

“Sicilian Letters” is one of 21 films competing for the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, which will be awarded on September 7.