No, they are not anti-mafia heroines. But women who rebel. Women born and raised in Calabrian clans who are running away and trying to carve out a different life to free themselves and their children from the slavery of criminal familism. With the help and sometimes unfortunately without sufficient help from the judiciary and the state. This is the fiction The Good Mothers, out today on Disney+ and awarded at the Berlin Film Festival, which we assure you is a must-see. Not just because it’s interesting, not just because it draws attention to dark worlds and events, but because it’s adrenaline pumping, immersive, and well done.
It is interpreted by Queens of Fiction: Micaela Ramazzotti in the role of Lea Garofalo, Valentina Bellè in that of Giuseppina Pesce, Simona Distefano in that of Maria Concetta Cacciola and Gaia Girace in the role of Denise, daughter of Lea Garofalo. Directed by Elisa Amoruso and Julian Jarrold, it is based on the book of the same name by Alex Perry (and it took an English journalist to investigate the stories of our house).
“The series looks at the ‘Ndrangheta from a fairly new female perspective – explains the director, also British, who has already been behind the cameras in series such as “The Crown”. It shows how women live in the Calabrian mafia, the most dangerous and impenetrable in the world. It’s the path judges take to understand that you have to focus on them to break the wall of silence.
The most famous of the three stories told is that of Lea Garofalo (Ramazzotti): she was the first real witness of the ‘Ndrangheta, she tried to rebel against her family mainly to save his daughter Denise (Girace) from a hard fate as a wife and mother of criminals. After a complicated relationship with the judges (technically she wasn’t a pentita) she was finally killed when she got out of the protection program (and there was a lot of controversy about this) by her comrade Carlo Cosco, who, due to the mafia codes, was able to not “forgive” the betrayal. The daughter’s denunciation then led to the historic trial of the assassins in Milan. Lea is buried in the Famedio among the greats of the city.
The series then simultaneously traces (the crucial events take place between 2009 and 2012) the events of two other witnesses of the judiciary: Giusy Pesce (Bellè) and her friend Cacciola (Distefano). Two similar stories with different endings: both from mafia families, married very young, three children, subjugating and violent fathers and husbands. The first, personally involved in drug trafficking, after much hesitation, decides to speak up, knowing that after being arrested with her lover, she will never be forgiven: thanks to her, one of the greatest operations (All Inside 2) against that Calabrian crimes. Now she lives sheltered with her children. The second, on the other hand, died after taking hydrochloric acid: after trying to believe the suicide thesis, the family members were found guilty of the crime “death as a result of the crime of ill-treatment”.
“The two women are persuaded to cooperate with justice by a judge who arrived in Calabria the year Lea dies and understands that to overthrow the clans, one must focus on their wives and their desire for freedom , for themselves and for their children,” explains the other director, Amoruso. They live in a patriarchal and tribal world that feels medieval, and instead the stories that are told are only from a decade ago. And sometimes not much different than today.
“This series is important – adds the director – because it speaks about these slave women and does so without glorifying violence, as has been the case in other fiction.”. And it is also “a message of hope – adds Ramazzotti – I want it to give many other women the courage to rebel against certain cruel environments in which they were born and raised”. It is above all the children who give women strength, who are the social capital of the ‘Ndrangheta, the army of evil, which has to be replenished over and over again. “The prosecutor understands – explains Barbara Chichiarelli, who plays the judge (called Anna Colace in the series) – that the fear of the ‘Ndrangheta is not only that their wives are revealing something important, but that they become a role model for others.”
Perhaps this series won’t be able to convince other women – immersed in the mafia mentality – to muster the immense courage to rebel, but it still lights a beacon, a little light. And to help them there is above all a project drawn up by the Libera Association (by Don Ciotti) in collaboration with the DNA (National Anti-Mafia Directorate) to arrive at a law that protects all women, who choose to leave the mafia, run away even if they do not have the strength to state (or are unaware of) concrete facts and do not report family members. In this way they could be removed from the clans and their children saved as well. Lea scored the second goal, she didn’t save herself.
05/04/2023