“The Good Mothers” casts a light on the women of the ’Ndrangheta

LIKE ANY proud new mother, Bruna Morabito wanted her relatives to see her baby. But when her brother, Giovanni “Ringo” Morabito, came to her flat, he refused to look at the child. Instead, he pulled out a gun and shot her four times, mostly in the face.

Their uncle was Giuseppe Morabito, one of the leading godfathers of the ’Ndrangheta, the mafia of Calabria (a region situated in the “toe” of the Italian “boot”). In the eyes of her brother, Ms Morabito’s crime was to have tried to free herself from the ’Ndrangheta’s embrace: after graduating with a law degree, she had left her husband and her hometown of Africo Nuovo and was living with another man in Sicily. Worse still, the father of her child was an employee of the civilian police.

The ’Ndrangheta exercises what John Dickie, a historian of Italy’s mafias, calls “an almost Taliban-style control of the sexuality of the women in its orbit”. He likens women’s role to that of the offspring of medieval rulers, their main use being to seal alliances and prevent feuds between ’Ndrangheta dynasties. “Girls as young as 13 or 14 are promised to young men of suitable criminal status and expected to start having children as soon as possible,” says Professor Dickie, who acted as a consultant to the makers of a new TV drama mini-series that highlights the suffering of women entangled with Italy’s least-known mafia. “The Good Mothers”, adapted from a book of the same name by another British author, Alex Perry, is available for streaming from April 5th on Hulu in America and Disney+ internationally.

“The Good Mothers” is based on real events that began to unfold in 2009, three years after the shooting of Ms Morabito. It tells the stories of four other women who dared to defy the ’Ndrangheta. It also focuses on the work of the female prosecutor (her name changed in the series) who first realised women were a potentially weak link in the organisation’s formidable defences.

The show has none of the insidious glamour that clings to the “Godfather” movies, and to many productions made since. This is noir that is uncompromisingly dark. “We tried to make a portrait of Calabria that was as close to reality as possible,” says Elisa Amoruso, a co-director of the programme. The extras are all Calabrians and some of the minor parts are played by local people with little or no previous experience of acting. Ms Amoruso says the main problem they encountered was to find suitable locations. “It was clear that we couldn’t film in the places where these people actually lived. The producers found out at the beginning, in the scouting, that they would not be welcome.”

“The Good Mothers” benefits from the precocious talent of Gaia Girace, who played Lila in the first three seasons of the TV adaptation of “My Brilliant Friend”. Francesco Colella, her father in “The Good Mothers”, brilliantly radiates suppressed violence. And Valentina Bellè strikes a tricky balance as a spirited, hard-eyed henchwoman who is also a caring mother and a silent (or rather, silenced) victim.

In real life, ’Ndrangheta women are sometimes given ancillary roles. They carry messages, look after fugitives and even collect extortion money. But, says Ms Amoruso, “they are women who exist in a world made completely by men. These women are invisible—even in Italy.” Bringing them into the spotlight will not please the ’Ndrangheta. It has kept a much lower profile than either Sicily’s Cosa Nostra or the Neapolitan Camorra.

For the most part, the ’Ndrangheta has also succeeded ruthlessly in securing the obedience and submission of its women. Ms Morabito survived, albeit with irreversible brain damage. A report on her brother’s appeal, at which his sentence was cut to eight years and ten months, laconically recorded that: “After a long period of treatment, she returned home to her family in Africo Nuovo.” ■