02/10/2020 - Set in Sicily, the film is an Italian-Ukraine co-production starring Irma Vitovska and Giovanni Calcagno

Giovanni Dota and Irma Vitovska on the set of Koza Nostra

Shooting began just a few days ago on Koza Nostra, the feature film debut of Giovanni Dota, the 31-year-old Neapolitan director who previously worked as an assistant director on Gomorrah and authored the multi-award-winning short Fino alla fine. The film is a co-production between Italy and the Ukraine by Pepito Produzioni and FILM.UA Group, together with RAI Cinema.

Written by Giovanni Dota, Anastasiia Lodkina, Giulia Magda Martinez and Matteo Visconti, the story focuses on an interfering yet caring, mature Ukrainian woman, played by Ukrainian actress Irma Vitovska (My Thoughts Are Silent [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]).

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When Vlada Koza becomes a grandma for the first time, she drops everything and departs the Carpathian Mountains to go to her daughter in Italy, turning up on her doorstep without a word of warning. Unfortunately, the younger woman doesn’t appreciate her mother’s suffocating attentions and shows her the door without too much hesitation. Vlada finds herself alone and penniless in the Sicilian hinterland, until an unexpected car accident sees her become the unlikely housekeeper of Don Fredo, the boss of the Laganà clan, a dysfunctional Mafia family fighting for their survival. Vlada’s irrepressible intrusiveness - she loves to feel useful, to take care of others, to set things right and to offer advice - seems to bring a palpable sense of wellbeing to Villa Laganà’s inhabitants. That is, until the day Vlada discovers who Don Fredo and his children really are.

Joining Vitovska in the cast are Giovanni Calcagno (The Traitor [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Marco Bellocchio
film profile], currently touring cinemas in Davide Del Degan’s Paradise [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Davide Del Degan
film profile]), Lorenzo Scalzo and Gabriele Cicirello.

Shooting on Koza Nostra will unfold in the Lazio region, Sicily and in the Ukraine (namely the Carpathians).

(Translated from Italian)