Screening the Italian Mafia: Perpetrators, pentite and bystanders

This article considers the representation of gender in three recent films that treat three different Mafias of Italy. Edoardo Winspeare's Galantuomini/Brave Men (2008) is a woman's film that focuses on Lucia Rizzo, a female mob boss of the Sacra Corona Unita, the Mafia of Apulia. Marco Amenta's La siciliana ribelle/ The Sicilian Girl (2009) tells the story of Rita Atria who testified against the Cosa Nostra, the Mafia of Sicily. The plot of Claudio Cupellini's Una vita tranquilla/A Quiet Life (2010) revolves around Rosario Russo, a former member of the Camorra, the Mafia of Naples and the Campania region, who fled Italy and now resides in Germany. In these three films, women are raped (Lucia), commit suicide (Rita) or are marginalized and silenced (Rosario's wife Renate). I argue that the physical and emotional violence done to these women is downplayed and/or normalized, and ultimately male perspective is privileged and mafia values remain intact.