Neither an "objective" journalistic documentary nor a fictional recreation, Rosi's groundbreaking film about the social and political forces that shaped Sicily employs a wide range of disparate formal and stylistic elements in a quest for the ultimate truth.
July 5, 1950-Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano's bullet-riddled corpse is found facedown in a courtyard in Castelvetrano. Local and international press descend upon the scene, hoping to crack open the true story behind the death of this young man, who, at the age of twenty-seven, had already become Italy's most wanted criminal and celebrated hero. Filming in the exact locations and enlisting a cast of native Sicilians, director Rosi harnessed the facts and myths surrounding the true story of the bandit's death to create a startling exposé of Sicily and the tangled relations between its citizens, the Mafia, and government officials.
"Searching for the truth with a film does not mean wanting to discover the perpetrators of a crime, that is up to the judges and policemen, who sometimes do it at the cost of their lives and our grateful thought goes to them. Searching for the truth with a film means connecting origins and causes of narrated events with the effects that are the result." (Francesco Rosi)