The Professor

The Professor (Italian: Il camorrista) is a 1986 Italian noir-crime drama directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. His film debut, it is based on the true story of the Italian crime boss Raffaele Cutolo, and adapted from the novel by Giuseppe Marrazzo. The international version is shorter than the original Italian release. Plot In 1963, a young petty criminal, Raffaele Cutolo, kills a man who had harassed his sister Rosaria, and ends up in prison. Over the space of 10 years in Poggioreale prison in Naples, he becomes known as 'The Professor', a powerful, feared and respected figure. With his friends Alfredo Canale and Pasquale Zara "the animal", he creates the criminal organization "Nuova Camorra Organizzata". All run from Cutolo's prison cell, the organization grows and spreads until in the 70s it clashes with the old families of the Camorra, starting the War of the Camorra that will bleed all of South Italy in the 1970s and 1980s. The earth trembles In 1980, an earthquake strikes Naples and the Campania region. Fighting over the flood of government reconstruction money, the Camorrista war continues even more brutally than before. In 1981, the Red Brigades kidnap the regional Assessor Mimmo Mesillo (Ciro Cirillo in real life). Members of Mesillo's political party, the Christian Democrats, turn to the Professor to intervene, fearing that Mesillo will confess party secrets. In exchange, the Professor is promised freedom on mental illness grounds, and 3 billion in ransom. The assessor is freed, but taken into custody by the secret services rather than the police.