History of Anti-Mafia Resistance in Italy is Subject of Documentary by Film Professor

The ongoing struggle by the residents of Corleone, Sicily, against the Mafia is the subject of a new documentary by Tony Fragola, a professor of broadcasting and cinema. The village of Corleone, best known to American moviegoers as the birthplace of the fictitious Mafia Don Vito Corleone of Francis Ford Coppola’s film “The Godfather,” is a place where villagers have long fought against the Mafia, said Fragola. The documentary, titled “Another Corleone: Another Sicily,” is a labor of love for Fragola whose is of Sicilian heritage and teaches courses in Italian Cinema. The picturesque 13th century village has been witness to hundreds of innocent people killed by the Mafia. Starting in 1990, the Italian government passed a law allowing it to confiscate lands owned by Mafioso and return them to local cooperatives. “The land is the real basis and symbol for the Mafia, especially in Corleone which is where the most brutal and bloody Mafia chiefs come from,” Fragola said. “If you claim the land and return it the citizens your have symbolically undermined the power of the Mafia.” Fragola will be on academic research leave in the spring of 2008 interviewing Corleone residents, especially women, who are fighting the Mafia’s destructive control. “A Beautiful Memory: A Mother and Her Sons Against the Mafia,” Fragola’s previous film, depicted the heroic struggle of Felice Impastato, a widow of a Sicilian Mafioso whose son Giuseppe “Peppino” Impastato was slain by the Sicilian Mafia for protesting against the group. The film was first shown last year in a demonstration against the Mafia in San Vito Lo Capo, a notorious Mafia stronghold and most recently at the Center for the Arts, College of Staten Island. Source https://newsandfeatures.uncg.edu/history-of-anti-mafia-resistance-in-italy-is-subject-of-documentary-by-film-professor/