International correspondent
IDDU (SICILIAN LETTERS) (Venezia 81): Intervista con Fabio Grassadonia, Antonio Piazza e il cast
Directing duo Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza ("Sicilian Ghost Story") tell the true story of Cosa Nostra boss Matteo Messina Denaro — who was called "the last godfather" — in their new drama "Sicilian Letters," which opens Thursday at the Venice Film Festival.
“Sicilian Letters” pairs two top Italian actors — Elio Germano, who plays Messina, and Toni Servillo as his antagonist Catello, a shady secret agent trying to catch him — working together for the first time. The title refers to a clandestine correspondence between them using “pizzini,” small notes used by the Sicilian Mafia for high-level communications.
The film looks at a period during Denaro’s three decades as a fugitive from Italian justice, when he was at the height of his dark powers. After three decades on the run, Messina Denaro was arrested in mid-January 2023 outside a luxury medical facility in Palermo, where he had been undergoing cancer treatment for a year under a false identity. The top mafioso, convicted of orchestrating some of Italy’s most gruesome murders – including the killings of prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino – subsequently died in a maximum-security prison last September.
