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Francesco Munzi’s Anime Nere, presented in competition at the 71st edition of the Venice Film Festival earlier this year, will be screened at the Old University Building in Valletta this week.

Based on the novel by Gioacchino Criaco (itself inspired by a true story), Anime Nere recounts the tragic story of three brothers and their involvement in the ’Ndrangheta, the Calabrian Mafia.

Luigi, the youngest, is an international drug dealer; Rocco, Milanese by adoption, runs a business funded by his brother’s drug trade; and Luciano, the eldest, yearns for a pre-industrial Calabria and is tormented by spectral visions of the deceased.

Munzi draws on and subverts established genres and tropes within Mafia narratives to address issues around traumatic loss, betrayal and revenge in this achingly lyrical and intensely brutal film.

Peppino Mazzotta, who invests a haunting sadness into his performance as Rocco, will be present for the screening. Mazzotta is known for playing Inspector Giuseppe Fazio in the popular Il commissario Montalbano series. The film is subtitled in English and a discussion will follow the screening.

The event is being organised by the Department of Italian within the Faculty of Arts of the University of Malta in collaboration with Cinema Nuovo Italiano.

Anime Nere will be screened on Thursday at 7pm at the Auditorium, Old University Building, St Paul Street, Valletta.

Entrance is free, but reservations are encouraged by calling on 2340 2309 or sending an e-mail to yanica.cassar@um.edu.mt.