THE HUNDRED STEPS (I CENTO PASSI) European Showcase

Winner of Best Screenplay at the 2000 Venice Film Festival, Marco Tullio Giordano’s THE HUNDRED STEPS is not a film about the Mafia so much as it is, in the director’s words, “about imagination and the happiness of a group of kids who dared to look to the sky and challenge the world.”

Set in the tumultuous 1960s, this distinctively Italian film deconstructs family life and its obligations, in relation to the social constructs of a mob-run community. The hundred steps of the title are all that separate teenage Peppino’s home from that of Mafia boss Tano Badalamenti. But the rebellious Peppino rejects the local Mafia. Despite the pleadings of his worried father, Peppino embraces communism and founds a rebel rock station.

Highlighted by powerful performances from stage actors new to the screen, and featuring a stylized soundtrack complementing the setting, this film is an original, authentic account of Sicilian culture.