Few films can convey the authentic experience of what it means to be unfortunate heroes in one own’s land like I 100 Passi – Hundred Steps, with the unmatched expressive power of an auteur with an unflinching gaze focused on representing the forgotten small voices of a generation such as Marco Tullio Giordana.

Nominated for the Golden Lion at Venice International Film Festival and winner of five David di Donatellos, including one for Best Screenplay for the writing team which included screenwriter Monica Zapelli – awarded last year as well for L’Arminuta. Among other incredible accomplishments – 2 Golden Globes, a Silver Ribbon and several nominations - the film was eventually selected to represent Italy for the Oscar run in the year 2000.

I 100 Passi tells the life and the murder of Peppino Impastato, an activist engaged in the fight against the Sicilian mafia, and features the perfomances, among others, of Paolo Briguglia, Claudio Gioè, Lucia Sardo and has the merit of having launched the career of a young Luigi Lo Cascio – the face that has marked 2022’s Italian cinema and tv with his roles in most of the highest grossing films at the Italian Box Office including Gianni Amelio’s The Lord of the Ants, presented at this year’s Venice Film Festival, and hit tv series The Bad Guy.

To celebrate 21 year anniversary of the film, Minerva Pictures, together with Rai Cinema, has commissioned and promoted a restoration at the digital laboratory of the Istituto Luce-Cinecittà.

An accurate restoration, as strongly desired by Minerva Pictures for years, carried out from the 4K scan of the original 35mm scene negative and the DA88s of the Dolby SRD mix. The color restoration of the film was carried out according to the indications of the Director of Photography Roberto Forza and the director Marco Tullio Giordana, in a virtuous team effort to bring back on the big screen the powerful images that have marked a chapter of our history.

The film can be defined as one of the "modern classics" of Italian cinema, having entered our recent history for the merit of being able to represent the reality of the Mafia, with a decidedly cinematic attitude, in an authentic way while staying away from the many clichés that usually cloak the Mafia movies; a work of undisputed content value, often discussed as the anti-mafia martyr movie par excellence.

In the late seventies - when almost nobody dared to speak about the Mafia, and several politicians maintained that the Mafia did not even exist - Peppino repeatedly denounced Badalamenti’s criminal activities and the whole Mafia system, by using a small local radio station to broadcast his political pronouncements in the form of ironic humor.

In 1978, at only 30 years old, he was killed by an explosion. The police archived the case as an accident or a suicide, but his friends never accepted this conclusion, and the case was reopened twenty years later to confirm the suspicion that it was indeed a murder ordered by the local mafia boss Peppino denounced with his resistance.

Throughout the film, Peppino goes several times to the top of a cliff from which he can embrace, with a single glance, the sea, Monte Pellegrino, the Punta Raisi airport and the houses of his small town near Palermo, Cinisi: breathtaking landscapes that remind him of the importance to fight for beauty. These incredible locations still draw a lot of attention and the curiosity of my travelers who wish to walk in the steps of the brave activist.

The 4K restoration of I Cento Passi is now available on Movieitaly for all cinema lovers who want to rediscover Italian recent history and familiar names and faces of its iconic star system.

Movieitaly features many masterpieces that have made history but also offers a vast selection of Italian cinema to cater the needs of those who love genre, comedies and popular cinema: swords&sandals, giallos, 70s and 80s horrors! All in original language with English subtitles, with a special collection with French subtitles, for real cinema lovers across the world.

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