After Romanzo Criminale and Gomorra (which were adapted into TV series by Stefano Sollima), Suburra (2015) shows again that crime on screen is the main export from Italy – after all, the Italians invented the Mafia genre.
This time, Sollima uses Rome and one of its suburbs (Ostia) as the ‘Eternal City’ for greed and violence: a dangerous battleground where politicians, different generations of Mafiosi (the old guard who want some kind of order versus the restless young ones) and even the Vatican want their share. Suburra is a fizzing, energetic, Scorsesian depiction of a corrupted system, which at the same time feels like a series squeezed into a film with its many characters, twists and ‘chapters’ (the film takes place one week before the ‘apocalypse’).
The logical next step: Suburra is being adapted as a series for Netflix in 2017, the first original Italian content shot for that provider.
Film details
- Countries of production
- France, Italy
- Year
- 2015
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2016
- Length
- 130'
- Medium/Format
- DCP
