Francesco Benigno

La stanza dello Scirocco

The Octopus

An epic crime saga of power, money, violence and corruption. The mafia controls everything through local and international networks like an octopus, and anyone who tries to bring them down pays the ultimate price.

Mary Forever

A teacher discovers his calling. Marco relocates to Palermo from Milan and takes a job teaching in a reform school while he waits for a high school position. He tries to understand and motivate his handful of students, reading them colloquial poetry, encouraging them to stand up for their rights, finding out about their histories. Natale, in for murder, enamoured of the Mafia, the King Rat within the group; Mery, a drag queen, arrested for assault when defending himself, in love with Mario and, in daylight, rejected by all; Pietro, illiterate, muscular, believing his destiny is set; the callow Claudio, vulnerable, learning to harden himself. What can Mario learn and do in such a short time?

Boys on the Outside

Young men with no future have little in the present as well. Natale is released from prison: he takes up with his friends again but none can find work. Claudio, from Palermo, gets out of juvenile detention in Naples and he's met by Vita, a girl who's come from home to run away with him. Where can they go? A young dad, whose potato stall at the market is shut down because he has no permit, takes his two small children to the beach and yells at them. Mario, gay, a prostitute in drag, gets a visit from his mom; he offers tea, then finds the water to his apartment is shut off. Social workers drop by, parole officers file reports. What hope is there? What options besides crime?

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 Promised Life

Father Matteo

Don Matteo is a thoroughly ordinary Catholic priest with an extraordinary ability to read people and solve crimes. He’s a parish priest who never met an unjustly accused person he didn’t want to help.

Palermo – Milan One Way

A mob accountant accepts to be witness for the prosecution at a trial involving Mafia higher-ups. Seven cops are tasked with escorting him and his family alive from Sicily to the courtroom in the North, but it won't be easy.

Excellent Cadavers

Palermo, Sicily, 1984. Examining magistrate Giovanni Falcone allies with Tomasso Buscetta, a former mobster, to defeat the clan of Corleone, the ruthless Mafia faction that rules Cosa Nostra with an iron hand, cruelly eliminating all those who dare to oppose its immense power: other criminals, policemen, judges, even innocent civilians. One of them wants revenge, the other wants justice. But only one can survive such an unequal fight.

The Last Breath

Alfonso decides to rob a villa on the outskirts of Palermo believing it to be empty, but in the meantime the owner, Tony, who had an appointment with his lover, Margherita, bursts in and attacks him. Tony, councilor and doctor, wants to avoid the scandal and decides to treat Alfonso. Something clicks in Margherita that will lead her to see both of them, until she is forced to choose.