ULTIMATE DOCS COMPETITION

EXCELLENT CADAVERS

(IN UN ALTRO PAESE)

Italy, 2005, 92 min., Italian, English

Director: Marco Turco
Producer: Vania Del Borgo
Script: Vania Del Borgo, Alexander Stille, Marco Turco
Cinematography: Franco Lecca, Enzo Carpineta
Editing: Luca Gazzolo
Music: Andrea Pandolfo, C.A.M. Original Soundtracks
Sound: Alessio Costantino
Production Company: DocLab Production with Radiotelevisione Italiana - RAI TRE
Print Source:
Susan Nemeurer
DocLab Productions
Via L. Settembrini 38
00195 Rome, Italy
Tel.: +39 06 32652740
Fax: +39 06 32501323
e-mail: susannemeurer@doclab.it
www.doclab.it


Excellent Cadavers

This absorbing doc tells the story of the biggest anti-mafia trial in history and of the men who made it possible: Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. The first Sicilian prosecutors to take on the mafia and win, Falcone and Borsellino’s victory was short lived; their spectacular assassinations in 1992 are still an open wound throughout Italy. Made in close collaboration with Alexander Stille, the author of Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic, this engrossing film examines the relationship between the Mafia and Italian politics, a system of power that still exists in Italy today. Conversations with Letizia Battaglia, Sicily’s best-known photographer and a vocal opponent of the Mafia - her astonishing photographs taken at the scenes of major Mafia hits over the past 30 years showcase the gruesome acts this organization is capable of – as well as interviews with Falcone and Borsellino’s closest colleagues, first-hand witnesses of the Palermo maxitrial, as the journalist provides this subject – one that is often fodder for Hollywood – with chilling immediacy. As far as Stille is concerned, Sicily is the stage for a bloody civil war – fought on one side by the Mafia and on the other by hundreds of brave Sicilians. This provocative film shows key figures in the Italian government effectively supported the wrong side, exposing men like Falcone and Borsellino to the Mafia’s gunfire.

Marco Turco was born in Rome, Italy in 1960. After a degree at the University of Rome "La sapienza" and screenwriting and acting courses, he wrote for L' Unita and Movie. A writer and filmmaker based in Rome. In 1994 he made his first short, La Sveglia, which won a special mention at the Young Lions’ competition at the Venice Fim Festival 1994 and the Lumière Award at Bologna’s “Invisible Cinema” Festival. His first feature film Vite in Sospeso was presented out of competition in Venice in 2002. He works regularly as a screenwriter for television and film. He is presently shooting his second feature film, La Straniera.

Filmography:

La Straniera (2005), fiction;
In un altro Paese/Excellent Cadavers (2005);
Gillo Pontecorvo (2001);
A famiglia (1999);
In Lato sinistro dell' amore (1999);
Vite in sospeso (1998), fiction;
Jazzitudine (1997);
Coincidenze (1995), short;
La sveglia (1994), short;

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FRIDAY, APRIL 6 AT 1:00 PM./CHOPIN THEATRE