La storia di Cosimo Rega è quella di un uomo che viene condannato all’ergastolo per omicidio e associazione mafiosa: fine pena mai. I suoi crimini hanno lasciato una scia di dolore che farà male per sempre.
2015.08.15 La Tredicesima Ora |08| Cosimo Rega: Sumino 'o Falco | Carlo Lucarelli [HQ RaiPlay] Le scelte che hanno cambiato la vita 15_08_2015
#BluNotte #MisteriItaliani #CarloLucarelli #Crime #TrueCrime #Cronaca #CronacaNera #CronacaItaliana #CriminalitàOrganizzata #Camorra #Gomorra #Casalesi #CasalDiPrincipe #Clan #Boss #Gang #Mafia #MafiaItaliana #CosaNostra #Padrino #IlPadrino #Ndrangheta #SacraCoronaUnita #Saviano #RobertoSaviano
2015.08.15 La Tredicesima Ora |08| Cosimo Rega: Sumino 'o Falco | Carlo Lucarelli [HQ RaiPlay] Le scelte che hanno cambiato la vita 15_08_2015
#BluNotte #MisteriItaliani #CarloLucarelli #Crime #TrueCrime #Cronaca #CronacaNera #CronacaItaliana #CriminalitàOrganizzata #Camorra #Gomorra #Casalesi #CasalDiPrincipe #Clan #Boss #Gang #Mafia #MafiaItaliana #CosaNostra #Padrino #IlPadrino #Ndrangheta #SacraCoronaUnita #Saviano #RobertoSaviano
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TVTrascrizione
00:02There are stories that seem like novels and it would be better if they didn't, because they don't have novels.
00:08only the plot, the grandeur of the events that follow one another like effective chapters,
00:12the twists and turns and maybe an epic ending. These are true stories and the pain they carry
00:17Inside there is a real pain, which will hurt immediately and will hurt forever. And then maybe it was
00:23Better a different life, a life that doesn't hurt anyone and that can be told
00:27more for values and feelings than for facts, especially when they are facts
00:32criminals. Well, this is unfortunately a story from a novel, an ugly story, but a story
00:38important that we need, because in the end, as we will see, with difficulty, with pain and without
00:43excuses, it becomes a beautiful story. Like all stories of this kind, it is the story of
00:48a man. It was raining that summer rain that comes down slowly, but you walk under it
00:53but without realizing it. And there that rain for the first time managed to make me realize it
01:00I realized that the time had come to be myself, to put appearances aside
01:08and not to be afraid of having to face the evil that was inside me.
01:59His name is Cosimo, but his friends call him Sumino and he also has a nickname, Sumino.
02:04or Falco. At this moment in our history he is standing inside the defendant's cage
02:08of the Assize Court of Salerno, because he is waiting for the President of the Court
02:12pronounce the sentence that concerns him.
02:16Sumino takes a lot of risks and he knows it, but he has a bold, almost arrogant attitude. That's how he looks.
02:23the lawyers with the toga on their shoulders, the judges, the popular jury, even the wife
02:27who attends the trial. And also when the judge pronounces the sentence, in the name of the people
02:32Italian, this court sentences the defendant to life imprisonment, he does not lose his composure, he remains
02:38bold and arrogant, he glances at his wife, as if to say it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
02:42It's nothing, it's right. But then the judge says something else and then Sumino suddenly
02:49he is no longer so cocky, he stops looking at his wife with arrogant condescension, he lowers his
02:53his eyes and never raises them again. Here, it's a November morning in 1999 and it's midday,
03:08Our thirteenth hour, the hour when everything changes. Let's go back and see how we are.
03:13we've come this far. You don't sleep much the night before exams, let alone before a
03:29a sentence that can condemn you to life imprisonment. And in fact Cosimo hardly slept that night.
03:34nothing, lying on the cot in his cell in the high security section of the prison
03:39King Bible New Complex in Rome. Is he alone? And he's certainly thinking, though not fully.
03:45He quickly slips into what could happen to him, life imprisonment, with that sentence to write down
03:50on prison documents, never ending sentence, so absolute, so definitive, but it is not necessary
03:55think. Everything is right, everything is in order, maybe he'll even end up being acquitted. It can
04:01To be? No, and he knows it too, but he doesn't want to think about it. Sumino, Sumino, or Falco is on trial.
04:13for murder.
04:14It happened quickly. The car roared into the courtyard of a gas depot. A man
04:20who freezes in terror in the light of the headlights. Sumino and his friend who jump out of the
04:24car. Sumino shoots the man in the face with a .45 caliber pistol. His friend also shoots. Then
04:29back in the car and off to the streets of the town, in Angri, to be seen while walking
04:35calmly with the sirens of the police racing in the distance. What happened?
04:40They killed someone in San Gilo, Giuseppe, the owner of a gas depot. I don't know him.
04:45I know him. He didn't want to do it because Giuseppe knew him. He was just a robber.
04:50who minded his own business. It had never been a problem. Instead, his friend Peppe or Captain
04:55He says no. He says that Giuseppe wanted to kill him, kill him, oh Captain, to take the
05:00his business and be in charge. And so he killed him. Trying to get him out of this thing
05:05It seemed impossible to me because this man did not belong to organized crime. He was
05:10a robber. But he persisted. He persisted, persisted, persisted, persisted, until he convinced
05:16then what was necessary. With this I don't want to justify anything. I'm just telling
05:23of the facts. I don't want to justify myself. And so he was killed. Sumino had never killed before.
05:31No one. But important people had asked him, trusted people. A friend had asked him.
05:36She was afraid for him. And she couldn't refuse to help a friend anyway. Not in the
05:41his world. And not even to kill. Because sooner or later you'll have to do something, kill someone,
05:47it would have happened to him in that world. And if he hadn't, they probably would have
05:51He was also killed, according to the rules of that world. The world of crime
05:56organized. The world of the Camorra.
06:09No, it's not easy to sleep the night before sentencing. Even if everything is ready. The clothes.
06:14I'm already on the bed, just ready to put on. I showered the night before, because in the morning
06:18It can't be done soon. Everything's ready. Even the beard, with aftershave and perfume to put on.
06:23for that morning. Go to this moment as you go to a wedding. Instead
06:30You know exactly what you're getting into. But you don't want to admit it. You don't want to admit it.
06:35So go there with that swagger to show yourself if the protagonist, the one who will come
06:41sacrificed, what will come does. So there is also ignorance. The ignorance of making live
06:46These moments. But no. It's not easy to sleep when the assize court awaits you the next morning.
06:51A judge and jury await you, and a sentence on serious charges such as membership
06:57The Camorra is charged with Article 416 bis, mafia-style criminal association, and murder. And it doesn't end there.
07:04there, with only a life sentence. Because Sumino killed again. Those of the clan
07:10of Poggio Marino asked Sumino and his friends to give them a gift, to kill them
07:14Scardone, a convicted felon guilty of a series of misdemeanors.
07:22So a friend takes Scardone to his house, in an isolated farmhouse in San Lorenzo, near
07:27in Angri. But it's a trap. And in fact, while Scardone is unloading a suitcase from the trunk
07:33of the car, Sumino and the others jump on him. One hits him with a hammer.
07:37and Sumino finishes him off with a gunshot to the head fired through a pillow found
07:42in the car, so as not to be heard by a nearby gas station.
07:45Sumino or Falco, member of the Tempesta clan of Angri, in the province of Salerno, affiliated
07:51to the new family of Carmine Alfieri, murderer and Camorrista.
07:59Why do we tell his story? Why is it like a novel? Yes, but be careful, not a
08:04a crime novel, the kind I usually write. Or at least, not only. Because a novel,
08:10Like a person, it is never just one thing and it is not forever. And this is also true
08:16and especially for Cosimo. But it's only two in the morning. It's still a long way to noon. The time
08:22of the sentence, with that phrase that the judge adds to that word, life imprisonment. The time in which
08:28Everything changes. There's still much of that novel to tell.
08:46I come from a small town in the Salerno area, Angri, and I am the first of many children. For a series
08:53of reasons I had to leave school, because my father worked alone and worked at
09:01a cigar factory. But already at that age I felt the need to leave that place, I felt it
09:08that oppressed me, gave me no space, gave me no guarantee for the future. So I confined myself
09:15my father to let me go to Turin. There was a friend of mine who worked in Turin and was
09:21with his parents. Every time he came back from the beasts, he would talk to me about it and I was fascinated by it.
09:26this city. Then I exiled my father and went to Turin.
09:34Chapter one. Cosimo goes to Turin with his friend Bartolo in 1968. In the early
09:41For months, everything has been working great. He shares an apartment with his friend and immediately finds a job.
09:55There is a gentleman, they call him the knight, who is sitting at a table in a bar as if
10:00It was an employment agency. He had a leather bag full of papers with him and entrusted
10:04a series of jobs for the young people who come looking for it.
10:17Unloading trucks at industrial area warehouses. Stacking boxes in large warehouses.
10:22They are almost always porterage jobs and are undeclared, without insurance and without
10:27contract, but it doesn't matter. Cosimo earns in one day what he would earn in a
10:32A week at the sawmill, down in town. He can support himself well and send money.
10:36at home and proudly read the letters his mother writes to him, in which she talks about those
10:41money as a gift from God. He can also cultivate a dream, that of returning to D'Angri
10:46for the holidays on the saddle of a beautiful red motorbike that he sees in the window of a dealer
10:52every evening he comes home from work. One day the knight sends him to work
10:57in a large factory. Cosimo feels great there too. He works, and earns even more,
11:02He quickly makes friends with everyone. His dream seems ever closer and more concrete,
11:07but then something happens, something bad. I was wearing the mechanics' overalls, which are all
11:14A little big, I was very small, thin. I made a mistake cutting a pipe, I bent down to pick it up
11:21and I ended up with my arm under the circular saw. My adventure practically ended there.
11:25in Turin. I had to undergo three or four operations to put my arm back in place, until a
11:31a certain point, which then remained, let's say, with a minimal percentage. And I returned
11:38back to Angri again, this time with fewer dreams and more disappointment.
11:45In Angri Cosimo starts working in the fruit and vegetable shop that his father opened
11:49with the severance pay. Then he goes to Germany, to his uncle, and starts working.
11:54with a peeled tomato importer. And this too is a dream of his, something he's building.
11:58alone. But then he is forced to return home, because in the meantime they found him a
12:03permanent position in the municipality of Castelcivita, still in the province of Salerno. And not a permanent position
12:08You could say no. In the meantime, I had met this girl, Gelsomina, and we fell in love.
12:15And in those times it wasn't easy to get engaged because the parents, especially mine, my mother,
12:26who had the aspiration, who knows what, that I could expect from life.
12:34And then it was a very troubled, anxious engagement. And then it's not that they didn't want us.
12:43Well, but in their own way. So they took it upon themselves to decide the future. No, you know, parents want
12:48always directing their children. No, for the good of it, after all. And they don't realize that
12:53then sometimes they do harm. And so, well, one day I was forced to run away with
13:00Gelsomina to make her accept.
13:02And the elopement, which at the time, we're in the 1970s, was common, especially in the South. Gelsomina
13:07She is 13 years old, Cosimo is 17. She still goes to school and he picks her up along the
13:13street.
13:13The brown coat, the cap made by grandma, the books under the arm, held together
13:19from a spring. They escape to the mountains under a mulberry tree and when they return their families are forced
13:24to accept their engagement. Gelsomina goes to live in Cosimo's house, sleeps in another
13:29room of course. And they wait to get married, patiently, waiting for Cosimo's sisters,
13:35According to tradition, they settled down. But then something else happens. Gelsomina gets pregnant.
13:41and at that point she and Cosimo are forced to get married. But his family takes her
13:46very badly. The father has an unexpectedly violent reaction and throws him out of the house. Cosimo is
13:56He's been angry. He's been angry ever since he left his arm under the saw in that factory.
14:01and he had to change his whole life in a way that is not the one he had chosen
14:05He has always been restless, with the desire to do more, to always be
14:10anymore, otherwise he wouldn't have even left for Turin. And now he's also confused. This
14:15He doesn't justify anything, as he himself says when he tells his story. But in this
14:20This is how he feels at the moment, angry and confused. This is how the first chapter of this ends.
14:25novel, which up to now is still a popular novel, a small almost neorealist fresco
14:30of Italy between the 60s and 70s. And the second chapter begins, which transforms it
14:36in a crime novel.
14:42Sumino ends up in a bar, thinking badly, with malice. And nearby are some guys.
14:48who are having strange conversations. There are only three of them. They need a fourth to go.
14:52all the way to Rome, to steal, steal cars. Sumino knows one, he offers to be the fourth,
14:58he goes with them and in one night earns 500 thousand lire.
15:02Well, you know, then there's the allure of easy money, the pride of saying
15:07that now I'm getting married with the money I earn. And who cares, it started in a way
15:12my career as a criminal.
15:38The alarm went off early, half an hour ago, because we're leaving at 5 and we have to get ready.
15:43But Cosimo wasn't sleeping. He was quick to get up and put on his ready-made clothes.
15:48on the bed, after shave, perfume and then down for the search and the handcuffs and inside
15:53in the armored vehicle alone, with the prison police officers at the wheel.
15:57Are you familiar with that procedure? Actually, you know all the prison procedures well.
16:02and not only that, but also the unwritten ones, the ones that are not said and cannot be said.
16:07Because he has frequented several prisons, Sumino or Falco, one could say almost all of them.
16:12Because after those first car thefts, after that easy money that allows you to make the
16:17good life, to show off, to appear, with the satisfaction that it gives to pride
16:22personal being looked at with interest, by people like the boss of the Angri clan,
16:27because that's the world, Sumino doesn't stop.
16:39He has a good job, a beautiful family, a wife he loves and who loves him, a little daughter
16:45to which a male will then be added, but it is not enough, it is not enough for him. So Sumino does not
16:50stop and pass the robberies.
16:51He starts with a jewelry store. He has to monitor the gun shop's customers.
16:56who stands in front, while his companions rob the jewelers and does it with a coldness that
17:02it amazes him.
17:14A few days later the Carabinieri arrived and arrested him, and Sumino ended up in prison.
17:18for the first time?
17:26I have to say that when I was arrested, I was arrested together with a friend of mine who was not
17:30It had nothing to do with a robbery. I was guilty, yes, but he had nothing to do with it.
17:38We learned it as a game, we were friends as kids. He pointed me out shamelessly.
17:43saying I was innocent, then convince myself, by telling a lie to myself, that I was
17:51innocent, so I faced the prison stairs and even the police stations with optimism,
18:00No? I'm going out, I don't know anything about this, who's accusing me? The impact, the entrance was beautiful,
18:08scented, the stairs, the Madonna, the flowers like all prisons, but inside the impact
18:13It was tremendous, because for the first time I became aware of space-time. Space
18:23it was minimal, time was enormous, it never passed, but above all there was no beauty in those
18:31places.
18:31He stays in prison for four months, they find nothing on him and they have to let him go.
18:36Here, this could have been our turning point, our thirteenth hour, because
18:42Cosimo, once he had experienced prison, with all its ugliness and having succeeded
18:46to get away with it, he could have gone back, brought his life back to the popular novel,
18:52he, Gelsomina, who knows nothing of all this, his daughter Sabrina and his son Damiano,
18:56But no. Cosimo, Sumino, doesn't stop. He forms a small gang and starts robbing.
19:04clandestine gambling dens, especially because of the fact that those who are robbed in those circumstances
19:09it's unlikely he'll then go and report everything to the police.
19:18One day there is a friend who tells him that there will be a big table, more than 10 million,
19:22millions of that time, we are in the 70s. It's a risky move, there are important players
19:27who may not let themselves be put down, but decide to do it anyway. Something's wrong.
19:32crooked, one of the gang tries to intimidate the players, he lets slip a shot of
19:37gun and kills Sumino's friend, the one who had given him the tip.
19:41They arrested them all, including Sumino, who fled to Milan. He was tried and received 20 years.
19:47for robberies and complicity in murder, later reduced to 14 by the Court of Assizes of Appeal and confirmed
19:52in Cassation. And here begins the third chapter of this life that seems like a novel, that
19:57of the real prison.
20:12The blue armored vehicle of the penitentiary police has left the Grande Raccordo Anulare. It has
20:18held the A24, the Aquila Teramo up to Rome East and then invoked the motorway to Naples.
20:31Inside, sitting alone, is Sumino, who is used to traveling that way.
20:35He's done it many times, between one prison and another. Salerno prison, Bergamo prison,
20:41Avellino, Matera, Procida. Islands that don't look like prisons, like Pianosa or La Gorgona, and prisons
20:48scary, like San Gimignano and Foggia. Prisons, anyway.
20:52At that time, the counting took place at seven in the morning, at three in the afternoon, at nine
20:58in the evening, at three in the morning. This meant slamming the bars of the cells. And
21:05So you were forced to jump all the time. But the thing that struck me most was the search.
21:13which happened almost weekly. That is, while you were sleeping at four, at five
21:18in the morning, there were twelve of us in the cell, twenty officers would arrive, they would make you undress
21:24naked. You had to apply pressure and get out of the cell. Then when you returned
21:29In the cell you practically found the apocalypse, everything destroyed, clothes trampled. I was looking
21:39the reason, but I couldn't find it. And I think these are the first elements that lead to the denial.
21:48of a prisoner's soul. Things have certainly changed today.
21:52Yes, many things have changed compared to the prison of that time, which is between the 70s,
21:5780 and 90.
22:04They've changed where they have. For the better, as in many prisons, including Bollate.
22:08in the province of Milan, or in Padua, in the complex of the two buildings, where there is also a beautiful
22:13newspaper Restretti Orizzonti, made by prisoners. But there are also many other places where the
22:19Things haven't changed at all. As President Napolitano himself said during his visit to the
22:23Poggio Reale prison in Naples.
22:26One of the essential conditions of the rule of law is at stake. I am at stake, I must
22:33to say, in my responsibility as President of the Republic, the prestige and honor
22:39of Italy.
22:40The numbers speak for themselves. 206 prisons with a capacity of 47,000 inmates, which instead contain
22:4666,000, almost 140% more. 99 deaths in 2013, of which 47 were suicides. But this is a
22:56A story we've already told. Let's go back to Cosimo's story.
23:00When I started taking, getting used to, I use this very strong word, getting used to not managing
23:09more feelings, senses. So you rebel, you have to give meaning to your days, because
23:15Man is led to give meaning to his day, but there he offered you nothing. Then
23:20What was the offer? Revolt, on the sayings, protest. And so I began to enter into a mechanism
23:29of those who were protesting, who wanted to try to escape. And so I did 3-4 months
23:35In prison, every opportunity was a good one to have me beaten. They called it the squad,
23:41a guard group specialized in punishing inmates like Sumino, who occasionally hears
23:45the door of his cell opens, usually at night, he is grabbed, immobilized, carried
23:51He was taken out somewhere and beaten. Then he was transferred to Orvieto Prison.
23:59of Trapani, Campobasso prison, where in those years the mafia war raged which opposed
24:04Raffaele Cutolo's new organized Camorra to the new family of the Alfieri Galasso clan.
24:10987 deaths in 5 years, from 79 to 84. Many murders, many settling of scores take place.
24:17in prison.
24:22But in prison, in certain prisons, few but even then, there is not only violence, abuse
24:28and degradation. In Rome, in Rebibbia, in the penal section, thanks above all to the activity of the then
24:35Vice President of the Lazio Regional Council, Angelo Marroni, who works in prison
24:39as a volunteer, and to other operators. There's a theater company there, there are activities,
24:45there is a prisoner called Salvatore who has just graduated in literature with 110
24:49and who is preparing a conference on the importance of work in prison.
25:03Cosimo gets involved, presents a report, collaborates in the creation of a group
25:09of 17 inmates who get a VAT number to process the tomatoes that an entrepreneur brings them
25:14of Angri, a friend of Cosimo, and which they then sell to COP. The first cooperative is born within
25:19of the prison, on June 29th, presided over by Salvatore himself, Salvatore Bulzi. It seems that it goes
25:25All is well, but a nasty blow arrives. A warrant for arrest has been issued for Article 416 bis, an association
25:31mafia-style crime.
25:33I have to say with all my heart that it was the first time I was hit by something that had nothing to do with it.
25:38nothing, because I had already been in prison for 10 years, so it had nothing to do with it. But this
25:43led me to the exclusion of the cooperative, because the Piola Torre law provided that
25:53I would have in a certain sense influenced the life of the cooperative, so I left this
25:58what and it was my first disappointment. But I must say that I was then condemned to this condemnation,
26:04I got 5 years and 8 months and this sentence affected my future a little bit, because
26:10then it's difficult for you to get rid of the Camorra label.
26:15Cosimo doesn't give up, there's work in prison, there are permits to meet his family,
26:20there is an activity and an affectivity that make him think that there is something else too
26:25beyond the ugliness and wickedness of prison.
26:35Thus Cosimo founded the first Arce club inside a prison, the cultural club
26:40Albatross of King Bible, which with the collaboration of former imprisoned brigadists prints a
26:45magazine, fresh air. Then he founded a theater company and with it he puts on shows
26:50which are successful and are also performed outside of prison.
26:54Then semi-liberty and finally, one morning in mid-August 1988, the sentence comes to an end.
27:00and after 14 years in prison Cosimo is free. He has a job in Rome, he has a beautiful family with
27:06Gelsomina who moved to the Lazio Region, in short has everything to start a new life
27:11new life. But be careful, because our story isn't over yet. The stories, too.
27:18what seem like novels are never just stories of events and coincidences, they are stories
27:23of men and men have their times. There are still four hours to go until that moment, the moment
27:29where everything changes, when the President of the Court pronounces the sentence with those words
27:34which prevent Sumino from looking up.
27:45The armored van of the Penitentiary Police left the highway to exit at Salerno
27:51Center and then continued along Vittorio Emanuele. The Salerno Courthouse is located there.
27:57The hearing concerning Sumino, accused of murder and Camorra association, begins
28:01at 9. We had left him free in Rome, with his family and his work. We find him again
28:10now instead inside that armored vehicle, with handcuffs on his wrists and the officers escorting him
28:14right into the courthouse. What happened in the meantime?
28:17Unfortunately, the newspaper was supported by money from local agents. Money from local agents.
28:24It's not like they arrive right away. You know that, right? There's this thing. I needed to earn money.
28:30My wife worked. A Southern man being supported by his wife isn't always easy.
28:38This is gratifying. So I decided, even against Angelo Marroni's absolute opinion,
28:46who for me was an example, and is an example of life, a father, I decided to go back down.
28:53Mind you, we're not making excuses. Cosimo never looked for any. And in fact,
28:58When he tells his story, there's a phrase that comes up often. I don't want any justifications.
29:03We are not telling his story to express a judgement, but only to put the facts in order.
29:08and see how things work. Otherwise, even the stories that seem like a novel, popular
29:14or criminal, they would be of no use to anyone except those who have experienced them directly.
29:18So let's stick to the facts.
29:20I opened a kennel, because it was the only thing I knew how to do, the passion for dogs, but I noticed
29:28and discovered that the hero was neither the journalist, nor the notary, nor the pharmacist, nor the lawyer,
29:38But the hero was the Camorrista. Everything was tainted by the Camorrista.
29:45The premise, those like me, who had no education, those like me had already discovered the earnings
29:59easy through crime, he is a fragile person, certainly. A person who has not
30:05was able to build the foundations within himself, the social edifice to then tackle the problems
30:11of life and therefore for a series of things he was catapulted into organised crime,
30:18the so-called new Cammini Alfieri family, until they hit rock bottom, to kill.
30:33The ones who sent Sumino to the defendants' cage of the Assize Court of Salerno were
30:37the statements of a repentant, his friend Peppe Ocapitano, the one who had
30:42asked to kill for the first time, to kill that robber who, he said, wanted to kill him
30:47to take over his business in Angri. Captain Ocapitano has repented and agreed to collaborate.
30:52with justice and told everything. And so Sumino found himself on his shoulders
30:57Two murders and the Camorra association. You're not going out anymore, the officials told him.
31:02of the DIA, the Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate, who went to prison to interrogate him.
31:07When I was arrested for these murders, I knew that either I cooperated or I would be
31:22sentenced to life imprisonment. I made the second choice, to accept the sentence, because today
31:34I can say this without being ashamed, because I was a victim of appearances.
31:43Boss, you're not cooperating, you're a tough guy. It was another weakness that was emerging at that moment.
31:53And so I went there with the arrogance and ignorance of someone who doesn't realize he's doing harm.
31:59Also
31:59not only to himself, but to harm his family.
32:03No justification, just the facts. But something is happening, in fact it has already happened.
32:09happened. Because in the two years he spent in prison awaiting trial, Sumino has
32:14I thought a lot about Peppe Capitano, the collaborator of justice according to the law, the infamous according to
32:19Sumino, and he thought of it with hatred. And instead when he finds him in front of the trial to testify...
32:26against him, all that hatred, all that fierce malice vanishes. No rancor,
32:31nothing, it's nothing to him anymore.
32:50The Court has been in deliberation for a couple of hours. Cosimo waits, the wait is long.
32:55and finally after another hour the judges come out. Sumino is the one who told us,
33:01pride, the desire to appear, the bossy attitude. A boss doesn't collaborate, a boss doesn't
33:06he's afraid, a boss never cries. And in fact, when the President of the Court pronounces
33:11the sentence in the name of the Italian people and says that word, life imprisonment, Sumino launches
33:16That look at his wife, don't worry, it's nothing. It's part of life, of nature.
33:21of things. It's part of the world, the criminal world. Life imprisonment, that's fine.
33:26I had not taken into account a small codicil that the President of the Court of Assizes added
33:32to a life sentence. And this codicil read as follows.
33:40Well, a year of solitary confinement, that. It was peaceful. Loss of parental rights.
33:47Cancellation from the registry office of the municipality of residence. Loss of all rights.
33:55civil and criminal. And the fixation of this sentence in the local newspaper and on the outskirts of the town hall.
34:05Practically, with a small codicil, I who was a victim of appearance, the State had
34:13completely erased as a human being. I had become a number. Well, I can tell you with
34:21To be honest, those were the words and for the first time I felt shocked.
34:33Here is our thirteenth hour, the hour when everything changes. It had already begun to change.
34:38from the beginning, with ups and downs, going back and forth, because a man's life does not
34:43It is made up of chapters chosen by a writer according to a precise narrative logic, but it goes
34:48like this. But there comes a moment when you become aware of what's happening.
34:53and for Cosimo, as we are telling his story, that is the moment. It is not
34:58he is no longer a boss, he is no longer Summino Falco, he is no longer even a father or a husband, he is not
35:03nothing more. He is a lifer, forced to stay in prison for life, with
35:08that ugliness and that wickedness, himself a product of that life.
35:13So it happens that the first time he meets his parents, in conversation, and Gelsomina tells him that
35:18the lawyer is already preparing the papers for the appeal, don't worry, dad will go
35:22everything's fine, his children tell him, he says no, sit down and listen, no appeal, because
35:29He is guilty, he did everything he is accused of and he tells you everything,
35:34to Gelsomina, Sabrina and Damiano for the first time, he tells them who he is and what he
35:39he did.
35:39It was a very strong moment, because for a father to read the disappointment in his children's eyes
35:53It is right that we think of the children of the victims, but there are also our children who suffer
36:00It's also a fault they're not guilty of, so seeing disappointment in their eyes is a terrible thing.
36:09When the children leave, Cosimo remains alone with Gelsomina for a moment, he wants
36:15know what she thinks about it, the life sentence, everything that happened, everything that
36:19he did, and Gelsomina tells him that she is there, that she will always be there, as she has always been there.
36:25Here in the end, perhaps, the strongest character in this novel is Gelsomina herself,
36:30everything he went through, all the strength it took to raise the family,
36:34Work, travel for interviews, her love. There's a scene that tells it all.
36:39Well, Gelsomina. At a certain point, when he was still in prison for the robberies, Cosimo
36:45he gets discouraged and tells her that she doesn't have to come to the interviews anymore, that she doesn't want to
36:49See no one anymore. She says she'll go anyway, he says he won't leave the cell.
36:55to see her, and then she says she will sit alone, in the waiting room, to
37:01the whole time of the interview, and then he'll come back again the next time and do the same. Here,
37:06That's how Gelsomina is. And so she tells him then too, she's there.
37:11Do you really think that a wall can divide our family, can divide
37:16our love? And I believe those were the words that contrasted with the codicil.
37:26I believe that from that moment, even if anguishedly, the cultural revolution began within me.
37:33So it happens that finally Cosimo really begins to question himself, to look inside himself.
37:39with sincerity and without lies, to understand what has been and what it would like to be.
37:50It's not an easy thing, Cosimo is a lifer, he's in prison, always in that world,
37:55a world where we always speak in the past or the future, never in the present, which does not exist,
38:00and always with hatred, with all its wickedness and ugliness, with which one must deal
38:05accounts to survive. But Cosimo doesn't want to survive, he wants to live, he understood that it is
38:12That's where he belongs. But he doesn't want to survive prison, he wants to live it, as the warden says.
38:16after a long hunger strike, because it is not easy to do things in prison, especially
38:21if you're a lifer and everyone tells you there's time, you have time, all the time
38:25What do you want, but it's not true. And then it happens that Cosimo, together with others like him, founds
38:30another Arci club, the Rondine, which promotes a professional training course for operators
38:36on the computer, which employs eight people. And in the meantime, a revolution has begun.
38:41cultural, thanks also to a talented director like Carmelo Cantone, who opens the schools.
38:46And now, at Rebibbia Nuovo Complesso, there is a bit of a university student.
38:57Meanwhile, it happens that Cosimo founds another theatre company with the prisoners, the Liberi
39:01Artisti Associati, which stages Christmas at the Cupiello House, by Edoardo De Filippo.
39:06When Christmas comes to this house it's a punishment from God, here we go, let's escape
39:11the bull to Mr. Cupiello, you were served to the freed by Luca.
39:15It's so good that they make a replica for UNICEF, and then Naples millionaire, and also
39:20that one is so good that even Isabella 48 De Filippo, Edoardo's wife, arrives,
39:25to congratulate them. Then a director like Fabio Cavalli arrives, the company grows,
39:30and with him they do Shakespeare and Dante. And just as they are doing the fifth canto of Inferno,
39:35that of Paolo and Francesca, two important directors arrive, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani,
39:41who came to listen to them.
39:42In my opinion, Dante also thought a little about the prisoners, I was saying, because prison is
39:49a place where love is forbidden, because when we meet our wives, they
39:54our girlfriends, our companions, beyond the wall, we shake hands, a certain
40:00meaning, each of us is Paolo, the other is Francesca. And those in my opinion were the verses
40:06more true, more beautiful, more terrible, to describe what a human being felt when love
40:13He could only remember it in his silence. This struck the Tavians and after a while they came
40:21on horseback and said, but you know, the Tavianis want to make a film with us, Julius Caesar. And so
40:27then the film, Julius Caesar, was born.
40:29Then it happens that with the direction of the Taviani brothers, Cosimo and the others interpret a
40:34film, Caesar Must Die, which is the story of how the Bible is staged in King
40:39Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
40:40In front of Cassi.
40:43Caesar is uncertain, he grabs it, he doesn't grab it. If you want, you have to put the desire in.
40:49in chief. Rome, a city without shame.
41:15Cosimo plays the part of Cassio and the film wins the Golden Bear at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival,
41:20first Italian film in 11 years. Wins 5 Davide Donatello Awards, including Best Film and Best Picture
41:26Directed by, and nominated for Italy in the Best Foreign Film section at the Oscars
41:312013. There is a sentence in the film that for us sums up quite well the meaning of that
41:36that we are telling. The aforementioned Cosimo and the Taviani brothers put it right
41:41at the end of the film, also for them to sum up everything a bit. Since I discovered art,
41:46This cell has become a prison.
41:49when you live in captivity, that place, your natural habitat, and then you get used to it
41:58to everything, so you don't think about freedom, you almost erase it. And your home gives you,
42:04you feel at ease, in the morning you get dressed, good morning, good evening, you go for a walk, you do
42:08Sports, you go to the cell, you eat, the afternoons go by, then you rest, vegetate, vegetate. And you get used to it.
42:15that condition, but then when the state gives you those tools inside you, which like
42:22art, we discussed, culture, even through the characters you have to play,
42:29there is reflection with your being, then reflection brings you to awareness
42:35and then awareness discovers the place where you really are. And in that moment it begins
42:40suffering and only at that moment does prison have a very specific role.
42:44Cosimo Rega is still with Gelsomina, his children have grown up and are getting married.
42:49road in life.
43:00Today he is 62 years old, he spent more than 35 years in prison and he is still there, in Redibbia nuovo
43:06complex, life sentence, never. He only goes out to work at the switchboard at the University of
43:12Rome 3, hired on a permanent basis by the June 29 cooperative which contributed to
43:16to found. A prisoner worker and not just a prisoner worker, as he is keen to point out,
43:22on par with other workers. He wrote a beautiful book that tells his life story which seems
43:27A novel about Mino Falco, the autobiography of a lifer. And he continues to do theater,
43:32of course, busy with the company staging Enemy of the People, by Eric Ibsen,
43:37which will also take them to Redibbia for a moment of reflection with the inmates. Not only that,
43:42He volunteers in the office of the guarantor of prisoners' rights in Lazio. And seen
43:47the interest of young people in schools, he founded the cooperative Prigionieri dell'Arte,
43:51which promotes the culture of legality through art. Restorative justice,
43:57He calls it, somehow repaying society for its wrongdoing. It's a very important thing.
44:01And again, there's an episode that sums it all up. Cosimo is in the Casal juvenile prison.
44:06del Marmo, in Rome, and is speaking with the inmates in a debate after the screening of the film.
44:11At one point a boy asked me a question, a big boy, he was 17 years old because
44:18he was there, we were not yet 18, he was in the second row but he had an attitude
44:24Very very arrogant, like a Camorrista. He was all dressed in Nike, he runs away with Nike, in short.
44:32hat, all Nike, watch you could see from afar, that it was an important watch.
44:37Then he came close to me, he had seen the film, he looked at me with that admiration,
44:44No? He says, can I ask a question? Sorry, of course I'm here, but you have to answer me.
44:50honestly? Sure, I say that for sure in my opinion. When did you people kill him? And it was
44:57met after, you say what do you do to him? At that moment I realized perfectly that he
45:05he had seen the film and had connected the boss who had become an actor and had not understood
45:13nothing about my path, how he got there. So much so that he told me how much
45:19people were excised, as if it were the most banal thing in the world. And it was true, because
45:25Killing in organized crime is the norm, the norm. So I had to
45:32I had to answer him so that he would understand the importance of those words that had been said to me
45:43I said. I had a moment of silence, I must say that I searched for an answer within myself.
45:48very strong. And for once I answered him with great sincerity, if you ask me
45:55How many people have I killed? That's a wrong question, and I won't answer it. But if you ask me...
46:02How many orphans and how many widows I have created, then yes. This makes you understand how much harm
46:10I still carry it inside for having done this. Be careful here, because it's important. It's important.
46:16Cosimo's answer, which helps us understand his path. It helps us understand how what
46:21It started as a popular novel and then it became a crime novel, now
46:25perhaps it is no longer so criminal. Now it has become an informative novel, the
46:30A man's life. But be careful, because what happens next is also important to us.
46:35Now, the boy's answer is important, it makes us understand how dramatically they are
46:41The things we are telling are urgent and dramatically important. Because Cosimo says
46:47that beautiful sentence, I didn't kill people, I made widows and orphans. But to that
46:52point the boy looks at him in a very particular way.
46:55I realized that he was looking at me at that moment, no longer with that admiration
47:02that I had, but with disappointment. But who are you, you fool? And I said, I disappointed you, right? You know when
47:11Will you be able to understand what I said to me? I told him, when you will spend this time,
47:19this water inside, reading, reading, letting the clean air into your head, clean
47:26of those things and let the fresh air in and then you mature in consciousness, awareness
47:31At your age, you need to put all this stuff in. You can live on just 100 euros.
47:37a month, 150 euros a month. He replied to me with these words, you're stupid, I earn 1500
47:46euros a week, you understand? And I don't do anything. He actually explained that he was on the edge
47:54of the alley, with his cell phone in his hand, if the police car passed by he would warn it and then
48:01the criminal made and earned 6000 euros a month. So all my reasoning in that
48:06At that moment they were going to fuck themselves, let's be clear. And I realized, I strengthened myself even more
48:12the idea, because he didn't realize he was committing a crime. It was bothering him
48:17phoned. That's culture. And I've strengthened that when I'm
48:23I went to my country. This belief in culture, because when I was away, it existed
48:30a grey eminence, but he was a grey eminence, let's say, at a slightly higher level
48:35You found politicians, some of them. Today that eminence grise is in the territory. Organized crime
48:44Guys, he trained and we didn't notice. The state didn't notice.
48:50And so we too must do training, without taking it for granted, which means forgotten,
48:56values such as beauty, justice, and goodness. Because if it is true that of the 66,000 inmates present
49:02in Italian prisons, only 28 thousand are there because they committed their first crime,
49:08It also means that 57% of inmates return to prison. This means that prison, as a place of re-education,
49:16where a part of society enters with a problem and is expected to leave without it, it doesn't work.
49:22And so, as long as we continue to consider prison as an alien place in which to put
49:27people to be forgotten and not as a part of the city, like hospitals or schools,
49:32We'll continue to tell stories of lives that read like novels. And it would be better if we didn't.
50:08Thank you all.
50:09Thank you all.
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