Diario di una siciliana ribelle

Amenta draws from the diary that Rita kept in the nine months before her death in 1991, interviews with survivors and news footage to tell a riveting and inspiring story right out of "The Godfather."

Stripping away the false glamour generated by pop culture's undying fascination with the Mafia, this hour-long film tells the tragic but inspiring story of a 17-year-old Sicilian woman who risked — and ultimately lost — her life in order to reveal just what a nasty bunch they really are.

The visuals can seem desperate -- Sicilian landscapes through a scrim of turning pages -- but a storytelling guitarist's running elegy gives Rita's bold actions a sadly epic scope.

Loaded down with rhetorical devices -- writer and director, Marco Amenta, drowns it in a flood of sentimental effusions.