FROM DIRECTOR MARIO MARTONE COMES THIS
VENICE GOLDEN LION NOMINEE, AN ITALIAN CRIME DRAMA ADAPTED FROM THE CLASSIC PLAY BY CELEBRATED
DRAMATIST EDUARDO DE FILIPPO
THE FILM PREMIERES EXCLUSIVELY ON
FILM MOVEMENT PLUS BEGINNING SEPTEMBER 9, 2022
The SVOD Platform Also Celebrates the Venice Film Festival, Highlighting
More Than Two Dozen Festival Favorites from Film Movement’s Deep Catalog, Including Ukraine’s 2021 Oscar Submission, BAD ROADS, Oscar Nominee CORPUS CHRISTI, and Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s Golden Lion Nominee,
THE THIRD MURDER
When Mario Martone, a long-time Venice Film Festival crowd pleaser with films such as 2021’s The King of Laughter, Noi credevamo, Leopardi, and Capri-Revolution, brought THE MAYOR OF RIONE SANITÀ to the fest in 2019, it competed for the prestigious Golden Lion. For the feature film adapted from his 2017 stage version of De Filippo’s classic play, Martone was awarded the Leoncino d’Oro Agiscuola Award for Best Director.
Set in preset-day Naples in a “rione” or traditional neighborhood, the rione Sanità is one of the city’s poorest, besieged by crime. The “Mayor” as he is known, is Antonio Barracano, a power broker who adjudicates disputes in a godfather-like manner. Part gangster don, part mediator and judge, Barracano sees himself as the guardian of his flock, a ‘man of honor’ who distinguishes between ‘decent people and scoundrels’, though in Martone’s adaptation, the Don, originally an Old World gentleman of 75, has been turned into a tattooed toughie in his late 30s (played with tense ferocity by Francesco Di Leva). Using his charismatic influence, he administers justice according to his personal criteria, beyond the law and local politics. However, when the baker’s son approaches him with a wish to kill his father, Don Antonio recognizes the same feeling of revenge that obsessed him when he was younger, and he decides to intervene to reconcile father and son and try to save them both.
Aside from THE MAYOR OF RIONE SANITÀ, in conjunction with the 2022 Venice Film Festival (running from 8/31-9/10) Film Movement Plus will also spotlight more than two dozen of the best films to come out of the festival in years past including BAD ROADS, Ukraine’s official submission to the 2021 Academy Awards; Amjad Abu Alala’s YOU WILL DIE AT TWENTY, Sudan’s first Oscar submission for Best International Film; the 2020 Academy Award nominee, CORPUS CHRISTI; Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s Golden Lion nominee, THE THIRD MURDER, Naji Abu Nowar’s powerful and assured directorial debut, THEEB, Oscar nominated in 2016, Takeshi Kitano’s cinematic masterpiece, HANA-BI and PARADISE, a Holocaust drama from director Andrei Konchalovsky which captured him the Venice Silver Lion for Best Director in 2016.
