CORRUPTION. Leonardo Sciascia and the Denunciation of Power
Film review on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the author's birth

The year 2021 marked the centenary of the birth of one of the leading intellectual figures of the Italian twentieth century: the Sicilian writer and politician Leonardo Sciascia. With his short and incisive novels - just remember "The day of the owl" (1961) and "To each his own" (1966) - Sciascia denounced the corruption of a political class deeply colluded with the mafia in particular and with crime in general, aimed solely at looking at and increasing one's privileges. The question of a corrupt power that pervades and undermines the democratic system, raised with such clarity by Sciascia, inspired in turn some of the most talented Italian directors of the time: Damiano Damiani, Elio Petri and Francesco Rosi, among others, transformed the Sciascia's novels in films that have now become classics of post-war Italian cinema.

To celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Leonardo Sciascia and honor his critical effort, the Department of Novel Studies of the Hebrew University, the Italian Cultural Institute of Tel Aviv and the Cinematheque of Jerusalem offer a review of these films, some of which subtitled for the occasion for the first time in Hebrew. From the Sicilian reality of "The day of the owl" (1968) by Damiano Damiani to the pulsating center of power staged in "Todo Modo" (1976) by Elio Petri, the review offers a cross-section of the themes addressed by Sciascia and of the interpretations, sometimes very free, that the cinema wanted to give them. The questions that these films, and the Sciascia books on which they are based, raise urgently are: Does power always and necessarily corrupt? How can an individual resist and oppose the lure of corruption?