Sicilian letters

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Trailer

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Sicilian letters (Iddu)

Sicilian letters (Iddu)

Sicilian letters (Iddu)

original title:

Iddu

cinematography:

editing:

costume design:

production:

Indigo Film, Les Films du Losange, Rai Cinema, with the support of Regione Lazio, CANAL +, CINÉ +

country:

Italy/France

year:

2024

film run:

122'

format:

colour

release date:

10/10/2024

festivals & awards:

Sicily, early 2000s. After a few years in prison for mafia, Catello, a career politician, has lost everything. When the Italian intelligence service asks him for help in catching Matteo, his godson and the last prominent fugitive mafia boss out there, Catello seizes the opportunity to get back in the game. A cunning man with a hundred faces, a tireless illusionist who turns truth into lies and lies into truth, Catello launches into a peculiar and unlikely exchange of letters with the fugitive, whose emotional void he tries to exploit.
But a gamble with one of the most wanted criminals in the world involves a certain risk...

DIRECTOR'S NOTES:
The initial idea for this film came from reading the numerous pizzini (notes in code) written by the mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro during his long stint in hiding. The boss was able to run his clandestine life and business through these unusual letters. The notes, however, transcended the practical function of criminal communication and allowed aspects of his personality and the nature of the tragic and ridiculous world that swirled recklessly around him to emerge. Drawing free inspiration from these pizzini, Iddu recounts the correspondence between Matteo, a reluctant prince of a senseless world, and Catello, a grotesque mask of sunny amorality. With Matteo and Catello, we immerse ourselves in the void in which an entire people wallows as if in a great sea kissed by the sun and the Gods.