Marco Bellocchio’s Cannes competition entry Il traditore (The Traitor), which follows the first high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra to break the Sicilian mafia’s oath of silence, is Italy’s candidate for the Oscar for international feature film.
The film stars Pierfrancesco Favino as Palermo native Tommaso Buscetta, who climbed the ranks of the Cosa Nostra as a smuggler, first of cigarettes and then of drugs.
But in 1984 – disillusioned after years as a fugitive, multiple arrests, a prison sentence, and the deaths of several of his friends and family members, including two of his sons, whose bodies were never found – Buscetta revealed vital details of the inner workings of the clan to anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone.
His testimony helped Falcone and fellow prosecutor Paolo Borsellino convict more than 300 mobsters at the famous Maxi Trial, Italy’s biggest and most successful anti-mafia prosecution.
Falcone and Borsellino were assassinated by the mafia in 1992, but Buscetta continued working with authorities, revealing links between the Cosa Nostra and politics as well as the identity of brutal mafia boss Salvatore “Totò” Riina.
He also testified at the Pizza Connection Trial in the US, explaining how the Sicilian mafia would traffic drugs abroad and launder the profits via small businesses, many of them pizzerias.
His cooperation with authorities allowed him to move to the US under witness protection, where he remained until he died from cancer in 2000, at the age of 71.
The Traitor covers Buscetta’s entire journey from mobster to informant and into his later years.
After launching from Cannes, The Traitor had a nice run at the Italian box office, where it scored more than €4.7 million via Rai Cinema’s 01 Distribution unit.
