29/08/2003 - The Italian director’s controversial new film is a no-holds barred attack on post-war Italian political power, organised crime, the US secret service & the Vatican

Paolo Benvenuti certainly rattled some cages with his latest feature, Segreti di Stato (Secret File), about the Portella della Ginestra (Sicily) massacre of 1 May 1947 in which 11 people lost their lives.
The film is Benvenuti's take on a particularly unsavoury page of recent Italian history and he points an accusatory finger at latter-day politicians who were in cahoots with organised crime, as well as with both Italian and American secret services and the Vatican. Although the massed ranks of the press applauded the film at today's screening, they certainly did not spare Benvenuti some awkward questions. Valerio Riva, a councillor with the Venice Biennale, described Segreti di Stato as a joke: “It is impossible to take a theory like Benvenuti's seriously. He wants us to believe that Pope Pius XII, Don Sturzo and Giulio Andreotti commissioned this massacre.”
Benvenuti refuses to take this negative criticism lying down: “An important survey published by 'Il Corriere della Sera' a few days ago came to the same conclusions as we did. It all becomes clear if you compare the minutes of the Parliamentary Commission investigation into organised crime with the American secret service documents that were made public by the US government.”
Officially, the responsibility for the massacre lies four-square with Sicilian bandit, Salvatore Giuliano, but the film reveals the existence of a CIA plan to dampen down communism in Sicily by scheduling the massacre for the same day as International Workers’ Day is traditionally celebrated.
Additional fuel was added to the flames when historian Giuseppe Casarubbea accused Benvenuti of lifting material from Casarubbea's book without giving the author due credit. Producer Domenico Procacci wasted no time in replying: “the historian’s name features in the end credits.”

(Translated from Italian)