The Sicilian Girl

Check out this new film! I can't wait to see it! My family wonders sometimes how my grandmother was able to serve Filet Mignon at her wedding during the depression. The family was involved in "politics" as they said.

Lovers of Italian cinema will want to see “The Sicilian Girl,” or “La Siciliana Ribelle,” an Italian language film with English subtitles that opened this month in New York.

The fictional film focuses on Rita Mancuso, the daughter of an old-school Mafioso who, after her father and brother are murdered by rivals, seeks out a local prosecutor and offers to testify against her father’s killers. Played by actresses Miriana Faja (portraying Rita as a child) and Veronica D’Agostino (embodying the protagonist as a teenager), Rita originally turns to the law to seek revenge but ultimately comes to a greater understanding of justice.

The film is based on the short life of Rita Atria, a Sicilian teenager whose testimony was critical to many convictions of Mafia members. Director Marco Amenta previously examined Atria’s life in his 1997 documentary, “One Girl Against the Mafia: Diary of a Sicilian Rebel.”