Rome Festival previews Falcone and Borsellino film

(ANSA) - Rome, October 15 - In the tragic lives of slain anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, there was an unexpected forced vacation on the island of Asinara seven years before their deaths.
    It was 1985 when, in order to write up the investigation results in preparation for the 1986 Maxi Trial against Cosa Nostra, the two magistrates were forced to stay on the Sicilian island of Asinara together with their families, because of Mafia death threats.
    This is the story told in 'Era D'Estate' (It Was Summer) directed by Fiorella Infascelli, which pre-opened the Rome Film Festival on Thursday, starring Massimo Populizio in the role of Falcone and Giuseppe Fiorello as Borsellino.
    In one night, the two "super magistrates" took up residence in the small guesthouse at Cala D'Olivia on Asinara - where, incidentally, the film was also shot with the support of the Sardinian Film Commission - watched over by a pilot boat and penitentiary guards. There they were forced to stay, unusually relaxed with their two different personalities that were almost diametrically opposed.
    Falcone was left-wing, anxious, keeping his head down, and famously collected figurines of ducks, while Borsellino was right-wing, more optimistic, and was well-versed in Shakespeare and Dante.
    The two found themselves having to share an unexpected summer awaiting papers for the Maxi Trial that, however, never arrived.
    In the meantime, Lucia, Borsellino's oldest daughter (played by Elvira Cammarone), suffers from a case of anorexia so serious that she has to be taken to Palermo, while Manfredi, her brother, (played by Giovanni D'Aleo), has adventures on the island.
    On Asinara they formed a sort of extended family, where there was a complicity between the partners of the two magistrates - Francesca Morvillo, Falcone's girlfriend, played by Valeria Solarino, and Agnese Borsellino, Paolo's wife, played by Claudia Potenza.
    On the island they go swimming, they play Battleship, they laugh and they look out at the sea.
    Borsellino at a certain point says he wants to be reborn as a gardener, while Falcone has only the great fear that the delay in receiving the files hides a desire to delay the Maxi Trial.
    Foreshadowings of death aren't lacking either, especially in a scene in which Falcone and Borsellino are cleaning sea urchins and tell of their fears.
    Then there's the return to normal life, when the two families go back to Palermo, through to the inevitable fate that befell the two magistrates in 1992, when they were both killed by Cosa Nostra.
    A key phrase in the movie is when Borsellino, speaking of the death of Ninni Cassarà, says, "well, it's known that in the end, Palermo swallows everything".
    "I wanted above all to tell the story of this forced inactivity," explains the director who has worked side-by-side with Giuseppe and Bernardo Bertolucci, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Nanni Loy.
    "I met Borsellino and I read a lot about him, and I met with people who knew both him and Falcone. I wanted to feature these two men who are considered heros, but capable also of humor. But the real emotion was filming in the same guesthouse where that summer took place," Infascelli said.
    Fiorello said he was especially emotional playing the role of the mythical Borsellino.
    "It's true that the phrase that Palermo swallows everything is important. It's a political phrase, still true, that's also a prediction for the future".
    Populizio is even harsher in his judgement.
    "That phrase still makes sense. We know that it's still that way. We're all in a sort of big dumpster," he said.