Black Souls

Based on real events described in Gioacchino Criaco’s novel, BLACK SOULS (ANIME NERE) is a tale of violence begetting violence and complex morality inherited by each generation in rural Calabria, a real-life mafia (‘Ndrangheta) seat in Southern Italy. The Carbone family consists of three brothers, Luigi (Marco Leonardi) and Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) who are engaged in the family business of international drug trade and Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane) who has remained in the ancestral town of Africo in the Aspromonte mountains on the Mediterraen coast – herding goats. His 20-year old son Leo (Giuseppe Fumo) has little respect for his farmer father, but idealizes his Mafioso uncles. When Leo shoots up a bar owned by a rival family with a longstanding blood feud with the Carbones, his reckless actions create trouble that brings the whole family back to Africo for the inevitable bloody showdown.

The film was actually shot in the Calabria region where the mafia activity took place.

“Munzi peels remorselessly away the layers of his plot in this timeless fable of pride and power, of youth and experience, of father and son, and brother against brother. Anime Nere is far more than a gangster movie set in the Italian south: it becomes a morality tale about breaking cycles of violence and finding a new way. This is its true strength, and Munzi does a superb job of detailing the various forces at work. Dark and sinister, full of foreboding and twists, his elegant film tells the story of a man's struggle to escape his past with integrity and force.” PIERS HANDLING, TIFF