Director Carlo Carlei Producer Franco CristaldiScreenplay Carlo Carlei – Gualtiero Rosella Story by Carlo Carlei Director of Photography Raffaele Mertes Production Designer Franco Ceraolo Costume Designer Mariolina Bono Editors Carlo Fontana Music Carlo Siliotto Special effects ZedSpecial Images RAI Associate Producer Gabriella Carosio Makeup Alessandro Bertolazzi Visual Consultant Paolo Zeccara
Vito – Manuel ColaoMarta Rienzi – Francesca Neri Davide Rienzi – Jacques Perrin Scarface – Federico Pacifici Vito’s Father – Sal Borghese Orlando – Lucio Zagaria Giovanna – Giusi Cataldo Rocco – Massimo Lodolo Vito’s Mother – Anita Zagaria Police Woman – Isabelle Mantero Questor – Nicola Di Pinto Scarface’s Driver – Severino Saltarelli Porter – Gianfranco Barra Vito’s Grandfather – Giovanni Palla Vicino Vito’s Grandmother – Anna Lelio Don Silvio – Beppe Chierici Stefania – Veronica Del Chiappa Simone – Sandro Barletta
A ravishing afternoon in Calabria, Southern Italy. A glowingly sunbaked landscape of tumbled villages, olive trees, dozing shepherds.Only a menacing shotgun left leaning against a nearby rock might lead us to suspect the truth: that the life here has dark and bloody underpinnings…And when the violence erupts it comes straight at us, in an istant, in waves of revenge that eventually sweep away an entire family – men, women, and children.The only survivor is a 10 – yaer – old boy (MANUEL COLOA) who has found refuge in fantasy as he watches everything with wide eyed wonder. The story of FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT is his quest to escape from his nightmarish inheritance to prove to himself that he is still free to determinate his own fate.Making his feature film debut, talented young Italian director Carlo Carlei has infused FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT with more than the visceral energy of a breathtaking thriller. He has tackled a subject which depicts the harsh realities of a society where violence and kidnapping have become a way of life.Metro Goldwyn Mayer presents FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT, directed by Carlo Carlei and produced by Franco Cristaldi and Domenico Procacci. The film stars Manuel Colao, making his acting debut, Francesca Neri, Jacques Perrin, Federico Pacifici and Sal Borgese. The screenplay is by Carlo Carlei and Gualtiero Rosella, based on an original story by Carlo Carlei. FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT is a presentation af Franco Cristaldi in association with Rocket Pictures, and is an Italian/French co – production from Cristaldi / Fandango in collaboration with Raitre (Rome) – Fildebroc (Paris).Carlo Carlei is striking example of a new kind of “international” director. He seems to have absorbed American filmmaking styles through every pore – only to give back to us pumped full of fresh enthusiasm and sensitivity. An avowed fan of the filmmaking styles of such American directors as Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Michael Mann, Carlei, 31, also express admiration for the earth – torned film poetry of European masters like Ermanno Olmi (“Tree of the Wooden Clogs”) and Andrei Tarkovscky (“Ivan’s Childhood”).Carlei has also chosen a backdrop for FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT that couldn’t be more timely. animosities between North and South, and between the haves and the have nots, have taken a nightmarish turn.On the island of Sardinia, and in the Southern Italian province of Calabria (where the shattering opening sequences of FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT take place), the virtual plague of kidnapping has sadly become part of the landscape itself.Since 1966, there have been 689 kidnappings for profit in Italy, 127 in Calabria alone, with the equivalent of over $20 milion in ransom changing hands. Of the 689 victims, Carlei says, 387 were released after the ransom was paid, 54 were never seen again, and 91 were rescued by the police. 30 more were found dead. Most of the victims, like young Simone Rienzi, (SANDRO BARLETTA) in Carlei’s film, are the heirs of the rich from the North.Though the industry of kidnapping is perhaps not as great a problem in the United States and other part of the world, recent abductions of affluent Americans should strike a chord with audiences of FLIGHHT OF THE INNOCENT.Americans tend to think of the Mafia as catalyst of criminal activity in the area of Southern Italy and Sicily. But an even esrthier from of rural banditry known as ‘Ndrangheta has been a tradition in the region for three centuries. The outlaw industry of kidnapping for profit not only pits clans of the ‘Ndrangheta against the ruling industrial and political families of Northern Italy, but also against one another.Carlei, who grew up in the small Calabrian town of Lamezia Terme, remembers “terrible stories about families just a few miles away destroyng themselves.”In the 17 years i lived there”, Carlei continues, “sixty people were killed in feuds between rival families of bandits in Calabria, including the massacre of entire family in which even the children were slaughtered”.Southern Italy, Carlei explains, is even more economically depressed than Sicily. Twenty years ago, almost yhe only legitimate work available there was subsistence farming. In recent years the government seemed to add insult to injury with a grotsqely misguided economic development plan for the region. Huge sums were a invested in industries that didn’t suit the local climate or labor force, and much of the money was siphoned off by corrupt politicians. Many of Italy’s recent political scandals can be traced back to cash skimmed from these projects.One of the grim monuments left behind by the failed development plan was an abandoned chemical plant that for Carlei is “a sort of cathedral in the desert”. Vito wanders through this structure in FLIGHT OF THE INNOCENT, which is situated only three miles from Carlei’s home village.”That scene in the chemical plant”, Carlei says, “is for me like Rossellini’s film “Germany Year Zero”, which is a story of a boy in Berlin after the bombing, and there’s a sense of loneliness that is almost cosmic. It’s a perfect metaphor, the contrast between this gigantic landscape, with all these metal structures, and the fragility of this boy who is so determined to change the direction of his life and his behavior”.