Press Overview Romanzo Criminale - Italian crime wave hits Sky Arts Nudity, violence, bad language - the Italian crime series Romanzo Criminale has them all. Director Stefano Sollima talks from Italy about his hugely successful fact-based drama that recounts the bloody rise of an Italian gang who defied the cops and the Mafia during the 1970s Italian TV is notorious for its endless chat shows, scantily dressed women and stripping gameshow contestants. However, the trashy reputation is about to take a knock with the arrival of Romanzo Criminale on Sky Arts . This is a sweeping, bone-crushing drama, inspired by real events during the chaotic, violent 1970s in Rome. Forget the twee staples of UK crime shows such as Lewis and Midsomer Murders . Romanzo Criminale is a crime drama con brio . It's based on the story of the Banda della Magliana , a vicious gang that set out to rule the criminal underworld of 1970s Rome. While Naples and Sicily were the fiefdoms of the Camorra and the Mafia, Rome's criminal network was a patchwork of small gangs, and the Banda set out to be top Rottweiler in the capital. Director Stefano Sollima aimed to push Italian TV's usual limits of violence and bad language in filming the story for Sky Italia, which is based on a novel by Roman judge Giancarlo De Cataldo and had already been made into a successful film. Murder, bombings, kidnapping and plots "I tried to do the same story but more aggressively and real, and this was new to our market," says Sollima by phone from Italy. "I wanted to have something that was glamorous sometimes, but normally really tough and realistic." While De Cataldo's novel is inspired by the real Banda della Magliana, names and details have been changed. One of the factors that makes the TV series so compelling is that this classic story of the gang's rise is little known outside of Italy. During the 1970s the country was a frightening place at times, one of police brutality, political murders, bombings, kidnappings and secret service plots against the government. The story of how the gang became involved in these disturbing affairs, filmed on the Roman streets with a soundtrack of classic 70s pop, prompted the leading daily newspaper La Stampa to call the show "the best series ever produced in Italy". The Lebanese, Ice, Dandi and Patrizia Stefano Sollima says its success is down to the freedom he was given. "I had an incredible chance to be free during the filming," he says. "They left me free to experiment. They let me play with music, giving me money to buy the rights to tracks. They let me choose all the cast, and they were all unknown." The story focuses on the Lebanese, who we first meet during a bungled lorry robbery. Running his gang from a clapped-out caravan and frustrated by his high-risk, low-reward criminality, he dreams of becoming a big player like Terrible, the city's major crime warlord. Kidnapping offers a way to huge rewards. The Lebanese, played with dead-eyed sullenness by Francesco Montanari, and Dandi (Alessandro Roja) link their gang with that of Ice (Vinicio Marchioni), and they abduct Baron Rosellini. The plot ends tragically, but the gangs get their money. Despite tensions between the rival outfits, the Lebanese convinces the crooks not to blow the money on hookers and Porsches, but to reinvest in further criminal enterprises - namely drugs. A young police inspector, Nicola Scialoja (Marco Bocci), goes after the Banda, becoming obsessed by the beautiful call girl who is the girlfriend of Dandi, Patrizia (Daniela Virgilio). Iggy Pop and Chic Meanwhile, the Banda corners the market in drugs, making many enemies, but also being enlisted by the secret service, which hopes to destabilise the government and ignite a right-wing coup. While the series has its odd corny moment, such as the gangsters playing a symbolic game of innocent beach football before embarking on their murderous drugs enterprise, the series is gripping and told with verve. Stefano Sollima used to be a news cameraman, so there is a lot of shooting with handheld cameras, along with overlapping scenes played out to pop classics by the likes of Iggy Pop and disco group Chic, a style that relies heavily on landmark mob movies such as GoodFellas . And the 70s detail is painstakingly done, from the old Fiat cars to the moustaches. Sollima says, "Today, if you show this series to young people, they can't believe it was true. For that reason, I put a lot of attention into the detail for costumes and the look of it. It was important to make it realistic." TV's Euro crime spree During a year in which subtitled crime series such as The Killing , Spiral and Wallander have won audiences, Romanzo Criminale looks like being the next big Euro hit outside its home country. "It's the first time you can see what happened in Rome, normally a quiet city," says Sollima. "The Banda della Magliana was historically exceptional. A group of people got the power in Rome and then they deal with part of the State and the Camorra. It never happened before, and now no one rules the city like they did." Explosive Italian drama Romanzo Criminale Season 1 Gallery Explosive Italian crime drama traces the ruthless exploits of a group of street criminals Set in Rome during the 1970s, Romanzo Criminale (Crime Novel ) is based on the award-winning film of the same name which tells the true story of the Banda della Magia, the prolific and bloodthirsty crime family in Italy who were responsible for some of the most violent crimes the country had ever seen. Romanzo Criminale first burst into the world as a gut-wrenching crime novel by Roman judge, novelist and scriptwriter Giancarlo De Cataldo. After becoming a cult novel in Italy, it was turned into a hit feature film which was the recipient of countless awards including an Italian Golden Globe, and the series followed with huge success in Italy. "The best television series ever produced in Italy” - La Stampa Political murders, spectacular bombing and high-profile kidnappings, the story is set in the violent underworld of Rome, a patchwork of petty gangs and small-time crooks where one young man, known only as The Lebanese, dreams of rising to the top of the pack. As he proves himself through a series of brutal crimes, he makes valuable connections among corrupt cops and politicians, and in the Secret Service, which seeks to enlist the gang to destabilize the government and provoke a right-wing coup. Pitted against the world of women, drugs, gambling and clubs of The Lebanese and his cohorts is the young idealistic police inspector Nicola Scialoja. Seemingly the one man not in the pay or pocket of the Mafia or the corrupt State, Scialoja is determined to bring the ferocious gang to justice, whatever the cost to himself or to the rules of the law. Hidden (BBC One): Lazy, scruffy, dodgy... and lovable, review John Preston reviews the best of the past week on television, including Hidden (BBC One), Terra Nova (Sky1) and Romanzo Criminale (Sky Arts 1). Although he describes himself as “just a high street solicitor”, I’m not sure I’d want Harry Venn (Philip Glenister) in Hidden (Thursday, BBC One) doing my conveyancing. He snorts coke, doesn’t bother to turn up to court where one of his clients is appearing, while the state of his shirt suggests he hasn’t been near soapy water since around the time of the Fall of Sebastopol. It began in satisfyingly Chandleresque fashion with a mysterious woman with scimitar-like cheekbones and a guttural way with her consonants turning up at his office and offering him a lot of money to find someone. Thereafter, as in any conspiracy thriller, plot strands were thrown out like so many lassos. In return for finding the missing man, Venn stands to discover what happened to his brother who was – seemingly – murdered two years earlier. At the same time the country is in crisis with the weedy prime minister struggling to keep his coalition government afloat amid allegations that he’s been siphoning off money into an offshore bank account. As played by Glenister, Venn is an engagingly shambolic brute and when he’s on screen Hidden has plenty of sparkle as well as narrative oomph. Ronan Bennett’s lines are witty and economical, while director Niall MacCormick shuffles the various elements adroitly enough to ensure that intrigued puzzlement never tips into blinding confusion. This is the good news. The not-so-good news is that the political subtext feels like very thin gruel by comparison with everything else. As soon as a politician appears, Bennett’s writing loses its sparkle. Instead everyone spouts a familiar array of wearisome cliches. Various real-life interviewers – Adam Boulton, Kirsty Wark – have been drafted in to quiz the fictional politicians, but far from this lending proceedings any veracity, they emphasise their phoneyness. … If the sight of people having their heads kicked in should ever pall in Romanzo Criminale (Tuesday, Sky Arts 1), there are plenty of comforting stereotypes to fall back on. Although the main characters – putative Mafiosi in 1970s Rome – swing their boots with happy abandon, they all live at home with their mums. You might think that even an Italian’s mother’s love might wobble a bit if she had a son who called himself Satan, but apparently not. Sky Arts are keenly touting Romanzo Criminale as just the thing to keep Killing-starved viewers nailed to their armchairs for the next few weeks, and they could well be right.