Bandits: Love and Liberty

Briganti: Amore e Libertà stars two of Italy's finest actors Claudio Amendola and Monica Bellucci. The film is directed by Marco Modugno, son of famous singer Domenico.

The story begins with a background dating back to 1838. We are in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in a village identifiable as Castelluccio Valmaggiore, in the province of Foggia belonging to the fiefdom of the Sangermano della Foresta barons. The bandit Giuseppe Caruso, intent on a rural embrace with his woman Maria, is surprised and killed by Malacarne, the Sangermano farmer.

After nine months Giovanni, son of Maria, and Costanza, heir of the Sangermano family, born from the love affair between her mother and her lover, who died in Africa some time before, were born on the same day. Costanza's mother dies in childbirth for which the child is entrusted to a nurse by Giovanni's mother. The two children are thus united by destiny, they grow together and a strong friendship is created between them, which grows until it becomes love.

The two, barely teenagers, are discovered while they exchange their first kiss; he is thrown out of the baronial house and abandoned to his fate, managing just in time to kill Malacarne, secretly commissioned by the baron to kill him, while she, finally offering her stepfather the chance to get rid of the fruit of his wife's betrayal, is locked up in monastery to pay for her sin and prepare to become a nun.

Events evolve in the following: we are in 1860 and the kingdom of the Bourbons of the Two Sicilies is conquered and annexed to the newborn Kingdom of Italy. With the convents stormed by the Piedmontese, Costanza can no longer become a nun and returns to the now dilapidated paternal house, where her stepfather is composed on his deathbed. His heart is always linked to Giovanni, who in the meantime had enlisted with the Bourbon army, but then had joined a group of pro-Bourbon rebels, led by Frappeste, engaged in a hopeless guerrilla war against Garibaldi's and Piedmontese troops, the so-called brigands.

Knowing that Constance has left the monastery, Giovanni goes back to look for her and the understanding between them is rekindled. After alternating events that see Costanza engaging in a marriage of interest, lasting just one day, and the final massacre of the band of brigands by an Italian army patrol, Giovanni manages to save himself and takes refuge with Costanza in the Papal State, at the time not still conquered by the Italian troops, and then embarked for France.