Read the Italian Version [2]

The United Nations presents the film Io Ricordo (I Remember), the story of anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino as well as many other victims of the Mafia. Io Ricordo is part of the program scheduled for June 17 in New York to mark the tenth anniversary of the Palermo Convention and the additional protocols established to combat organized crime in 2000. 

Sponsored by the  “Fondazione progetto legalità in memoria di Paolo Borsellino e di tutte le altre vittime della mafia [3]” (Project Legality Foundation in memory of Paolo Borsellino and all other Mafia victims) led by Judge Gaetano Paci, Io Ricordo debuts at the U.N. and is filled with humanity, pain, and hope. ( click here [4] to watch the trailer)  

Produced by Indiana Production [5], nd directed by Ruggero Gabbai, the film recounts the story of Falcone and Borsellino who were assassinated during the Capaci massacres on May 23, 1992 and on Via D’Amelio on July 19, 1992. The film also profiles lesser-known Mafia victims such as police officers Giovanni Lizzio and Nino Agostino who was murdered with his wife Ida in Villagrazia di Carini, prison warden Giuseppe Montalto, Judge Antonio Saetta who was murdered with his son Stefano, Peppino Impastato, and many others.  

The English version of the film was realized by the Foundation and spearheaded by Palermo’s Associazione Nazionale Magistrati (Judges' National Association) to raise awareness among young people and adults about issues concerning legality and the anti-Mafia movement, and was made possible thanks to funding from the Ministry of Justice. The idea of screening the film at the ceremony in New York came from two judges: Italo Ormanni, head of the Department of Judicial Affairs and Roberto Piscitello, deputy head of cabinet for the Ministry of Justice.

The DVD Io Ricordo is distributed in Italy by Medusa Home Video [6], nd has been seen in hundreds of classrooms throughout Italy. It has also been screened abroad as a result of an enthusiastic word of mouth campaign. Despite overwhelmingly positive feedback for the film, a distributor for movie theaters in Italy could not be found but the Foundation has made the DVD available at a discounted price. 

Io Ricordo has several producers including Gabriele Muccino who supports it because “this country needs examples.” In the film, Gianfranco Jannuzzo plays a father who tells his son Giovanni (the young actor Piero La Cara) why he was given his name.

Along Capaci’s seashore, just steps away from where Falcone was murdered along with his wife Francesca Morvillo and three bodyguards, police officers Rocco Di Cillo, Vito Schifani, and Antonio Montinaro, so begins the story of a long series of deaths but also eternal hope that, to borrow Falcone’s phrase, “walks on the legs of other men.”

Relatives remember why their loved ones are no longer here. “My husband Libero,” recalls Pina Grassi, “was the first to speak out against extortion money within the industry. But his colleagues said that he only wanted publicity.” 

“At sixteen,” recalls Manfredi Borsellino, “my father gave me a scooter. But a month later he made me to give it to a family who was victimized by the Mafia, to help them live, cope.” 
 

Giovanni, Peppino Impastato’s brother, explains the relationship between a son and his father who is in the Mafia. “Dad said to Peppino: ‘Become a communist, you can even go to Russia, but never talk about the Mafia.’ But he spoke out and he humiliated the powerful men in the area. And for that he was murdered.” 
 

*Journalist and member of the management committee for the Fondazione Progetto Legalità in memoria di Paolo Borsellino e di tutte le altre vittime della Mafia (Project Legality Foundation in memory of Paolo Borsellino and all other Mafia victims)

Translated by Giulia Prestia