Director Scimeca addresses letter to Meloni questioning the silencing of his most recent anti-mafia film

PALERMO - The Boy Who Loved Horses - a film about the police officers Zucchetto, Montana and Cassarà, who were murdered by the mafia - has not been approved for funding from the Sicilian Film Commission, writes il Fatto Quotidiano. Director Pasquale Scimeca writes to the Prime Minister.

  “The fight against the mafia is not (or should not be) a matter of either the right or left, but a moral duty of all: politicians, intellectuals and ordinary citizens. So why did an councillor of the Sicily Region, close to you, deny the funding to the film about young policemen barbarously murdered by the mafia?” Such is the question put forth by Pasquale Scimeca in a letter addressed directly to the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. His most recent film – The Boy Who Loved Horses – was not approved funding from the Sicilian Film Commission on July 2.

  The director chose to address the prime minister on the 40th anniversary of the killing of commissioner Beppe Montana, head of the Catturandi section of the Palermo Mobile Team. The councillor “close to [her]” to whom Scimeca refers, is Elvira Amata, also part of the FDI and the head of the Tourism Department, which has allocated funding for films and TV series.

  Amata is being investigated for corruption by the Palermo prosecutor’s office. According to the indictment, the councillor helped secure her nephew’s employment in exchange for funding for some events.

  After the rejection of the film about Biagio Conte, also rejected by the Film commission, there is now controversy over the refusal for to finance this film, which deals with the killing of police officers by the Cosa Nostra mafia group in the 80s. “[The policemen killed] were not dangerous extremists, but faithful servants of the State, killed while they did their duty”, wrote Scimeca, also the creator of works like Rosso Malpelo and Placido Rizzotto.

  The refusal came from the Sicilian Film Commission ranking in which it was revealed Scimeca’s work was not eligible for finance due to having a score below the minimum threshold (the minimum was 15, the film received a score of 14.6, just below the threshold).

  Almost 4 million euros were allocated by the Sicilian Film Commission for productions that participated in the call launched in 2024. Presiding over this sort of commission is Nicola Tarantino, manager of the Sicilian Region, who was also intercepted by the Palermo Financial Police in the investigation that involved the councillor.

  After the Cannes case, the latest corruption investigation by the Palermo prosecutor’s office, led by Maurizio De Lucia, raised a lot of questions on how the funding of the Tourism Department and the Presidency of the Regional Assembly, both led by two members of Meloni’s cabinet, were distributed. “Why are we still so afraid of these young policemen…who were looking for the fugitives between the alleys and the mafia suburbs? Yet, it is thanks to them that the hope of the honest Sicilians in those dark years have remained alive. It is thanks to them that Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone were able to lead that trial that represented the first victory of the State against the mafia”, recalled the director in his letter.

  He goes on to question Meloni, asking “why don’t you want the lives of these young policemen, Lillo Zuccheto, Beppe Montana, Ninni Cassarà, Roberto Antiochia and Natale Mondo, to be revived in a film? Why don’t you want today’s kids to know and identify with their values of courage, justice and love for the uniforms they wore with honor? How much are the value of the institutions that you represent their lives?” And the question still stands: why doesn’t she?

rs