Simona Malato

The Bone Breakers

Inside a warehouse in Palermo, a group of people smashes a man’s arm to pieces with a wheelie bag packed with weights. This is the method used by an amateur criminal organization that fractures the limbs of its willing victims before staging fake accidents and raking in the insurance payouts. Vincenzo recruits the individuals from among the down-and-outs that haunt the city streets, where Luisa is a habitué, since she gets her crack there. Vincenzo’s problems suddenly get worse, though, after a series of mistakes shut him out of the gang, and Luisa is now his only chance: he convinces her to have her bones broken.

Jabal - la montagna

Giusy is tired of living in the community where she grew up, in the indifference of the older ones and the hostility of her companions. She decides to cut the ties that force her and ventures out alone on the streets of a gray and aggressive Palermo. Her courage makes her come to the rescue of an old wandering poet who, however, disappears at dusk in the belly of a mountain. Giusy will find a new road.

Mercy

Three prostitutes live in the wasteland by the sea, where a village of outcasts has emerged. It is life in a harsh reality of poverty, ignorance, and violence. And the only ray of light in their lives is Arturo, whom they care for together. The young man is a weak-minded child in an adult body. His mother died in childbirth, and the women took him into their care as a newborn. What will the fate of this young man be in an environment he has not chosen and cannot choose because of his disability?

Fireworks

A sunbaked Sicilian town in the summer of 1982 provides the vivid backdrop to this tender romantic drama about two teenagers who fall in love, but much to the disapproval of those around them. Gianni is a handsome but shy teen who works as a car mechanic at his stepfather’s garage but is mercilessly taunted by the macho townsmen for being a homosexual. With his family life no better, Gianni withdraws into himself until one day he meets Nino, a curly-haired boy with an infectious smile. As the two become close and fall in love, the moral rumblings from their families and neighbors begin to erupt. With all against them, the boys decide to make a stand.

The Macaluso Sisters

Maria, Pinuccia, Lia, Katia and Antonella are five sisters who live in an apartment in Palermo. They make a living by renting doves for ceremonies. On a normal day at the beach, tragedy strucks.

It’s the Law

A small Sicilian town elects a new, honest major but quickly learns that playing by the rules is not as easy as it seems.

The Distance Between Us

Suddenly separated by 1500 km during Italy's emergency Covid 19 lockdown, middle-aged Chiara and Marcello’s attempts at video sex lead them to unexpected places. Misunderstandings and innuendo reveal deep fractures in their relationship, laid bare by the vagaries of the pandemic, normally glued together by the routines of domestic life. Over the course of 3 months, the couple discovers that the distance between them is greater than the length of the Italian peninsula that separates them. A heart breaking illustration of the collateral damage that can never be reflected in the pandemic data.

Una Femmina: The Code of Silence

Rosa is a young rebel girl who lives with her grandmother and her uncle in a remote part of Calabria, in Southernmost Italy. Her mother's untimely death when Rosa was a child casts a gloomy shadow on her present life.

Baaria

Giuseppe Tornatore traces three generations of a Sicilian family in in the Sicilian town of Bagheria (known as Baarìa in the local Sicilian dialect), from the 1930s to the 1980s, to tell the story of the loves, dreams and delusions of an unusual community.