I watched the Italian film La siciliana ribelle (The Italian Girl) directed by Marco Amenta, starring Veronica d’Agostino as Rita Atria, and Gérard Jugnot as the Prosecutor. Based on a true story, it chronicles Rita Atria’s life as a key witness in a major mafia investigation in Sicily. ‘Beginning in 1985 in Balata, Sicily, the eleven-year-old Rita Mancuso witnessed the assassination of her beloved father Don Michele by a rival Mafia family. Six years later, her brother is killed by the Mafia as well. Determined to avenge the murders, she decides to break the code of silence and goes to an anti-Mafia prosecutor in Palermo with her detailed diaries to be used as evidence. Being forced to flee her village, she is put into witness protection and transferred to a safe house in Rome.’
It was a pretty good film, but has put me in such a weird mood. I feel so grateful and blessed for the safe family and country I have been born into; but at the same time, excited to travel; especially to explore Italy, France, and Germany. There is so much art and history and culture in Europe that cannot be found in such a young and small country as New Zealand; but with that opportunity and possibility comes the unknown. It becomes so overwhelming that sometimes I wish I was doing something with my life that was clear and directed; that I would know exactly what I was going to be doing tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
