Liberty

When he landed with his volunteers in 1860 to liberate Sicily, Garibaldi issued a proclamation promising to distribute land to the people. The peasants took him at his word, and in some villages, they organized violent uprisings, killing local landowners and dignitaries. Garibaldi’s general, Nino Bixio, would ruthlessly suppress them. Drawing from a painful and little-known chapter of the Risorgimento (the film’s subtitle was Chronicle of a Massacre That History Books Never Told), Florestano Vancini creates a harsh film that has the immediacy of a documentary and does not shy away from brutality, driven by the political urgency to reinterpret Italy’s history. Co-produced with the former Yugoslavia (where filming took place), it is the only film written by the great Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia. 35mm print courtesy of Cinecittà.