Lions of Sicily, also filmed in Cefalu, will be televised in October. Assigned to Disney+ starting October 25th. Disney+ has announced that the new Italian original series Lions of Sicily, based on the best-selling book of the same name by Stefania Auci, will debut with the first four episodes on October 25 and the remaining four on November 1. The streaming service has also released the first official photos featuring the main characters Michele Riondino, Miriam Leone, Donatella Finocchiaro, Vinicio Marchioni, Eduardo Scarpetta, Paolo Briguglia and Esther Pantano, Adele Cammarata.
Lions of Sicily: The Story of a Disney+ Series
Written by Ludovica Rampoldi and Stefano Sardo and directed by Paolo Genovese (Perfect Strangers), Lions of Sicily tells the compelling story of the Florio family. The brothers Paolo and Ignazio (Marchioni and Brigoglia) are two small-time spice merchants who fled Calabria, tied to the past, in search of social redemption. In Sicily, they invent a future in which, from a run-down shop, they give life to a thriving business, which Paolo’s young son, Vincenzo (Riondino), will then turn into an empire with his revolutionary ideas. However, the life of Vincenzo and the entire family is overshadowed by the devastating arrival of Giulia (Leone), a strong and intelligent woman, in contrast to the rigid rules of society at the time.
The Lions of Sicily is an epic about love, family, success, war and revolution, set in 19th century Sicily before the unification of Italy in 1861. Finocchiaro plays Giuseppina, the mother of the Florio brothers (Pantano plays the same character in the younger version), and Scarpetta plays Ignazio, Vincenzo’s eldest son, who shares the same name as his uncle, a second father to him. Cammarata, on the other hand, plays the role of Baroness Giovanna D’Ondes, young Ignazio’s wife. In fact, it is he who realizes Florio’s desire for social ascent, in which his father does not succeed, marrying disdainful nobility. Auchi wrote a sequel to his popular novel L’inverno dei Leoni, first published by Editris Nord.
