Onora la Madre

ONORA LA MADRE focuses on the role that women played in the 'Ndrangheta, because their presence in Mafia contexts has always been underestimated whereas today has slowly surfaced again. The short explores the manifold and contradictory 'Ndrangheta female universe in Calabria. It explains - starting from reports, documents, traditions, rituals, testimonies, words and judicial documents, the 'Ndrangheta telling the stories and the figures of women that inevitably settle and serve calabrian clans. Everything starts with a quite enlightening syllogism: family is the core element of the 'Ndrangheta, woman is the core element of the family, woman is the core element of the 'Ndrangheta. Analyzing the real universe of the 'Ndrangheta’s mechanisms we realize the real role of women, often extremely important even if destined never to be formally recognized by the organization. Today women of the 'Ndrangheta embody many roles: usurers, pushers, postwomen, cashiers, murderesses, instigators, strategists but first of all the "Fimmine" are wives, mothers, sisters, daughters and grandmothers. This means that they have to procreate and educate their children. They are usually young mothers and they have to instill in their sons the basic principles of the 'Ndrangheta life. They are the ones who hand a mentality down made of hierarchies, respect, violence, honor and revenge. They teach what they have been taught, subdue their children according to principles which they consider inviolable feeding and welding those ties that underlie the very existence of the 'Ndrangheta. Blood ties that make the force of the more powerful Mafia organization in the world, relationships that are broken only by death and that represent the most powerful glue that you can imagine. Women are shadows. They must not show themselves, not talk, and not attract attention. It is not necessary affiliate them following the classic mafia rituals because as mothers, wives, daughters, sisters of men of honor they are already part of the organization. Women are often proved to be cruelest , sliest and smartest than their men in the management of illegitimate activities. Therefore, these women have found themselves to handle a power after the arrest or the hiding of their own husbands who have continued to stir and to operate in the shadow. The power that women of 'ndrangheta have, therefore, is very more radical and revolutionary than they imagine. They know, they see, they listen, they live 'ndrangheta on their own flesh.