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| Pierfrancesco Diliberto: " it is hard to accept that Mafia crimes are not just something that happens in Sicily.” |
One of Italy’s best known TV personalities and satirists, now turned film director, will open the 22nd edition of the Italian Film Festival in person in Glasgow on Friday (8 March).
Pierfrancesco “Pif” Diliberto, will present his debut film La Mafia Uccide Solo d'Estate (The Mafia Only Kills In The Summer), at the opening of the Festival at the Glasgow Film Theatre at 20.15 and take part in a question and answer session with the audience and IFF and GFF co-director Allan Hunter.
Diliberto grew up in Sicily during the 1970s and 1980s, two decades marked by a bloody war for Mafia supremacy, with regular killings of rival mobsters and anti-Mafia crusaders, and his film is the first attempt at explaining what his generation went through.
It is the fictional story of Arturo (played by Diliberto himself), who was born and raised in Palermo during those troubled years. Through Diliberto explains how ordinary people coped living side by side with corrupt politicians and Cosa Nostra's mobsters in Palermo.
He underlines how ridiculous the position of the State was during those years. He said: ‘If a seven-year-old child like me knew that a certain bar was the place where Mafia mobsters used to hold their meetings, how could the State not know and ignore it!’.
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| The Mafia Only Kills In The Summer |
The title of the film comes from a phrase Arturo's father uses to one of his son’s questions in the film when Arturo asks: “Ma la Mafia ucciderà anche noi? (Is the Mafia going to kill us too?). His father replies: "Tranquillo. Ora siamo d’inverno. La Mafia uccide solo d’estate. (Don't worry. We are in winter now. The Mafia only kills in the summer.)"
Diliberto decided to make the film because he came to realise that many people outside of Sicily didnot know much about the Mafia and the years that led to the 1992 massacres. “When I moved to the north of Italy, people asked me questions about the Mafia that I assume were common knowledge. I had to explain what had happened. Today, I notice that many of them are living how we used to live back then, in total denial. While various Mafia and Camorra operations in the north have already been uncovered, it is hard to accept that Mafia crimes are not just something that happens in Sicily.”
Although it was his first feature film he managed to raise a reasonable budget. “It was still rather limited compared to other films. We could not have that many posters around the country, so we used social networks to promote the film. I thought of getting people involved and launched the idea of ‘Aiuta Pif’ depending also on the people who follow my show (Il Testimone) on Mtv. I was overwhelmed by the number of people, who actually took the time to make a video to promote my work.”
This grassoots appeal was demonstrated by the Audience Award at the Torino Film Festival in 2013. It also scooped the European Film Award for Best Comedy and the David Di Donatello for Best New Director.
The IFF continues in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Inverness until 19 March.
