Disney Plus has announced its first Italian original doc series, titled “Ndrangheta, World Wide Mafia,” that will aim to provide an in-depth look at the Calabrian mob.
The four-part piece will look at the “Ndrangheta” through the prism of the war being waged by an Italian prosecutor against this lesser-known organized crime syndicate, which has become a global drug trafficker and money launderer.
The investigative series is being produced by Disney with Italy’s IBC Movie, the shingle that produced veteran auteur Marco Bellocchio’s “The Traitor,” about Cosa Nostra’s first high-ranking turncoat, Tommaso Buscetta. Bellocchio’s high-profile drama competed in Cannes.
Disney’s “Ndrangheta” doc series, to be directed by France’s Jacques Charmelot and François Chayé, will chronicle the work of Italian public prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, who is based in the southern city of Catanzaro.
It will follow the lead-up to and ongoing proceedings of a watershed so-called “Maxi-Trial” that started in January 2021 in Lamezia Terme in Calabria, led by Gratteri against more than 350 defendants, that is providing proof of how this syndicate has infiltrated legal economies and political circles around the world.
The series is a companion piece of sorts to “The Good Mothers,” another Italian original commissioned Disney Plus which depicts the Calabrian mob through the prism of three daring women inside the ‘Ndrangheta organized crime clan who collaborated with female prosecutor Alessandra Cerreti and withstood the consequences of their attempt to escape its iron grip.
“Good Mothers” is being scripted by BAFTA-winning British scribe Stephen Butchard (“Baghdad Central”) and is based on a book by Foreign Press Association award-winning journalist Alex Perry. House Productions of the U.K. and Italy’s Wildside are producing.
“Ndrangheta, World Wide Mafia” will be produced by Disney, IBC Movie and French production company Sunset Presse. Francesca Andreoli and Maurizio Feverati are executive producers for IBC. Carlos Carvalho Da Silva, Stéphanie de Montvalon, David Tillier are executive producers for Sunset Presse. The doc series is directed by Jacques Charmelot and François Chayé and is written by Jacques Charmelot and François Chayé with Giovanni Filippetto and Michela Gallio.