THE GEORDIE SICILIAN is a 35mm historical drama, based upon the true story of how a brutal, vicious and hushed-up gangland war was fought on the streets of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, between two Geordie crime families and the Sicilian Mafia during the 1970’s.
‘Molto simpatico, furbo e intelligente’ is how Donna Pia Savino described Giacco, the youngest of her two sons. Enzo, his senior, like their cousin Rocco, was destined to become a ‘soldier’, before succeeding his father, Don Pino, as head of the Savino clan.
Unlike his brother, Giacco would be a ‘civilian” and manage Rocco’s English business venture, leaving San Sebastiano to start a very successful men and women’s hairdressing salon in Newcastle. Like his other cousin, Tinoi, Giacco had worked from the age of eight in the local barber shop. Now in their early thirties and still unmarried, withthe family’s blessing, they both depart Sicility with Rocco for ‘Geordieland’.
Giacco takes full advantage of the opportunities presented. He marries the daughter of Sir Eduardo Port QC MP, a ‘Geordie Italian’. The Siclians then open the first Italian hairdressing salon and pizzeria in Newcastle, with the investment coming from sources back home and agreements to purchase supplies from Sicily only.
A location is identified in the centre of the city and both the salon and pizzeria are opened with a flourish. However, this development has not gone unnoticed by the Geordie underworld, controlled by two rival criminal families, The Tates and The Whites, who expect to get their cut and resent the success both Giacco and his cousins are having with the new enterprises, under the watchful eyes of both the police and the secret services.
Giacco then rejects a proposition from the local gangs to pay protection money and as a result trucks bringing shipments from San Sebastiano are set on fire when parked overnight, incinerating one of the drivers and an undercover agent of the Sicilan Anti-Mafia squad. Their murders, as well as the total destruction of the trucks and the produce, provokes significant retaliation from the Savino clan.
This is manifested by the calling in of a favour from ‘family’ in Glasgow, who travel down to Newcastle and burn down two large car dealerships owned by the respective Geordie families. The police are very worried that this is an act of ‘war’ between the Geordie Mobs and Sicilian Mafia and before long the Newcastle mobs take their revenge on The Geordie Sicilian.
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