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Aniello Arena, star of Matteo Garrone's Reality
Aniello Arena stars as a Naples fishmonger and small-time scam artist in Matteo Garrone's Reality.
Aniello Arena stars as a Naples fishmonger and small-time scam artist in Matteo Garrone's Reality.

Cannes 2012: former mafia killer is a hit

This article is more than 11 years old
Aniello Arena is attracting best actor buzz for his role in Reality, but would be unable to claim the prize as he is in prison

Aniello Arena has been touted as the next De Niro and tipped for the best actor prize at this year's Cannes film festival. But if he does win the award, he will be unable to claim his prize in person as he is a former mafia hitman serving a life sentence for his role in a triple homicide, it was revealed on Sunday.

Arena was cast by Matteo Garrone, the director of comedy Reality after delivering strong performances with his prison theatre company and was allowed out to the film's set on day release.

Described by Garrone as a "great actor" blessed with the onscreen charisma of Robert De Niro, Arena was part of a five-man mafia hit squad in 1991 who shot dead three members of a rival drug-dealing clan and accidentally wounded an eight-year-old girl on the outskirts of Naples, Corriere della Sera reports.

Captured by police that year, Arena then discovered acting in prison in Volterra in Tuscany and told Corriere his hitman days were far behind him.

"I turned over that black page in my life a long time ago and I am no longer that man," he said, adding that acting had saved him. "I would never have imagined that I would open a book, let alone recite Brecht or Shakespeare."

Arena is winning rave reviews for his performance in Reality as a Naples fishmonger and small-time scam artist who is bedazzled by the glamour of television and dreams of being selected for the cast of Big Brother.

Garrone said Arena's role as a wide-eyed, "modern Pinocchio" who is taken in by the promise of fame came naturally to a man who has spent 20 years behind bars.

"His weeks on the set were not just a holiday out of jail but the discovery of a world," he said.

Arena,44, said one thing he had not missed while in jail was Big Brother. "Unfortunately I have my own Big Brother here in prison, where we are watched 24 hours a day," he said.

Reality caps a golden cinematic moment for Italian criminals behind bars. In February, a film starring inmates at Rome's Rebibbia jail won the top prize at the Berlin film festival. Caesar Must Die, a docudrama directed by brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, follows prisoners – some of whom are serving time for murder and mafia crimes – as they rehearse for a performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Garrone has hired suspected mobsters before. In 2008 he won the grand prix at Cannes with his film Gomorrah, based on Roberto Saviano's book detailing the ascent of the Casalesi clan, one of the most feared groups within Naples' Camorra mafia. Following the film's release, a number of the actors playing mobsters in the film were arrested on suspicion of being real-life criminals.

Garrone was recently questioned by magistrates over suspicions he paid the Camorra protection money while filming Gomorrah. He denied the charge but admitted he had met bosses to research the film.

Garrone said he had wanted to cast Arena in Gomorrah but a judge decided it was not the right kind of film for a former hitman to be acting in.

The celluloid success of Italian convicts comes as Italy's law abiding thespians struggle to set the world on fire. "Should they continue going straight," asked La Stampa, "or commit crimes in order to get on the red carpet at the world's most important film festivals?"

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