''Black Souls'' () is a 2014 Italian-French

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Francesco Munzi Francesco Munzi (born 1 September 1969 in Rome) is an Italian film director and writer. His first film '' Saimir'' won as Best debut film at Nastri d'argento, at the Venice International Film Festival and was nominated at the European Film Awar ...

. It was nominated for the

Golden Lion The Golden Lion () is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguished prizes. In 1970, a ...

at the

71st Venice International Film Festival The 71st annual Venice International Film Festival , was held from 27 August to 6 September 2014, at Venice Lido in Italy. French composer Alexandre Desplat was the jury president for the main competition. Italian actress Luisa Ranieri hoste ...

. It was also selected to be screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the

2014 Toronto International Film Festival The 39th annual Toronto International Film Festival, the 39th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held in Canada from 4–14 September 2014. David Dobkin (director), David Dobkin's film ''The Judge (2014 film), The Judg ...

Plot

Luigi is a member of the Calabrian

'Ndrangheta The 'Ndrangheta (, , ) is a mafia-type organized crime, criminal syndicate originating from the Calabria region of Italy. Gratteri & Nicaso, ''Fratelli di Sangue'', pp. 65–68 This body, also referred to as the Commission in reference to the ...

and an international drug dealer, linked to powerful

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

n crime groups. His elder brother Rocco lives in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

with his wife Valeria and their daughter. He does not approve of his younger brother's lifestyle and is in construction business. Luciano, the eldest of the three brothers, has remained in

Calabria Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian S ...

tending his goats in the mountains, with the illusory goal of remaining uninvolved with his brothers' illegal businesses. Leo, the young and rancorous son of Luciano, in response to an insult shoots up the exterior of a bar protected by a rival clan of

, who had already been offended by Luigi's refusal to trade with them. Their history goes deep, however; Luigi hates them because their boss killed his father many years before. The rival clan demands that Luigi supply them with drugs, but this only motivates Luigi to return to his hometown to take them on, initially by strengthening his links with other families. However, before he is able to carry out his plans Luigi is summarily killed in the street. Rocco, arriving from Milan, is determined to take revenge but, before acting, he wants to know if his family is isolated or if it can count on the support of the other crime families. Leo, on the other hand, having had a strong attachment to his deceased uncle Luigi, feels that his duty is to solve things alone. He plans to kill the enemy boss, but is betrayed by his accomplice and killed. This upsets everyone involved, particularly his father Luciano who, after burning photos of his own father who died years before in an ambush by the rival clan, returns home, kills his younger brother Rocco, and seems as if he contemplates a suicide which would complete the extermination of all the men of his family and thus the lineage of violence.

Cast

* Peppino Mazzotta: Rocco *

Marco Leonardi Marco Leonardi (born 14 November 1971) is an Australian-born Italian film and television actor. He has been nominated twice for the Nastro d'Argento for Best Actor. Leonardi was born in Australia to Italian parents. He moved to Italy at the ag ...

: Luigi * Fabrizio Ferracane: Luciano * Anna Ferruzzo: Antonia, Luciano's wife * Giuseppe Fumo: Leo, Luciano's son *

Barbora Bobuľová Barbora Bobuľová (born 29 April 1974) is a Slovak-born Italian actress. She has lived and worked mainly in Italy since 1995. Life and work Born in Martin, Bobuľová trained at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava before moving to ...

: Valeria, Rocco's wife * Aurora Quattrocchi: Rosa *

Paola Lavini Paola is a female given name, the Italian form of the name Paula. In Greek it is Polina. Notable people with the name include: People In arts and entertainment * Paola Del Medico (born 1950), Swiss singer *Paola e Chiara, pop music duo consist ...

: Lucia's mother

Reception

Critical response

''Black Souls'' has an approval rating of 91% on

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website

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, based on 53 reviews, and an average rating of 7.4/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Black Souls works within familiar themes to explore intelligent -- and thrillingly entertaining -- dramatic arcs that plunge into the deliciously dark depths of Mafia crime".

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

assigned the film a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Black Souls 2014 films 2014 crime drama films Italian crime drama films Vertigo Films films French crime drama films 2010s Italian-language films Films about the 'Ndrangheta 2010s French films Films set in Calabria Calabrian-language films