Italian Film Festival - The Traitor

The Studio Italia Cinema Italiano Festival warmly invite you 'The Traitor'.

Legendary director, Marco Bellocchio, has been making films for over 50 years, he is known for films that explore and critique all the myriad contradictions of Italian society. Perhaps he is the only Italian Director with the standing to take on such a well-known, true story, of the Mafia informer that brought the ‘Cosa Nostra’ to its knees.

This multi-award winning film tells the story of Tommaso Buscetta, the first Mafioso to testify against his own clan. Italy in the early 1980s is meticulously portrayed with impressive historical accuracy. Buscetta is played note perfect by the masterly Pierfrancesco Favino. The Sicilian Mafia at the time ran the largest heroin market in the world, the stakes and finances were massive, the repercussion terrifying. When Buscetta’s brothers and sons are killed by rival clans, Buscetta, who had escaped to Brasil was made the offer by one of Italy’s most famous anti-Mafia Judges, Giovanni Falcone, to testify against the Mafia. The so-called Maxi-trial was enormous, and the media circus only exacerbated the situation.

This is a truly gripping and complex film that does not shy away from satisfying both the gangster genre films and a complex political parable. An immensely impressive film for the 80-year-old Director.