original title:
I cento passi
directed by:
cast:
screenplay:
cinematography:
editing:
set design:
costume design:
producer:
production:
Titti Film, Rai Cinema, supported by Ministero della Cultura
distribution:
world sales:
country:
Italy
year:
2000
film run:
114’
format:
colour
release date:
01/09/2000
festivals & awards:
Cinisi is a small Sicilian seaside town in the province of Palermo. It is situated close to Punta Raisi airport and is the setting for the story of a mafia family called the Impastatos. They have a cousin who lives in American called Anthony. Anthony is close to the family of Tano Badalamenti who takes the place of his uncle Cesare at the head of the family after Cesare’s death in a car bomb explosion. Peppino is everyone’s favourite child. He’s a boy who’s happy to learn a new poem to recite to his family during lunches. But Peppino starts to grow up round about 1968 and decides to rebel. He refuses to accept that his father agrees to take orders from a mafia family that controls drug trafficking and almost everything else in the Cinisi area. Peppino Impastato becomes the voice of truth and reason.
Together with a group of friends, he opens a private radio called Aut Aut where he openly talks about “Sitting Tano” who lives in Mafiopoli (a reference to mafia chieftain Tano Badalamenti). There is nothing worse for a mafioso in Sicily than having people laughing at him openly – this is what Peppino and his friends were doing. Peppino’s father throws him out of the family home but defends him to his “family” bosses and his mother continues to support Peppino discreetly. The father reaches a pact that nothing will bad will happen to his son while he is alive. But one day Luigi Impastato is killed in a car accident and suddenly it’s open season for Peppino. Despite knowing he is a marked man, he does not heed the warnings he receives and carries on regardless. The inevitable happens and Peppino is blown up on the railway tracks. According to the carabinieri, Peppino committed suicide but Cinisi refuses to forget him and the town finally rises up against the mafia.