“Onora la Madre” focuses on the role that women played in the 'Ndrangheta, because their presence in Mafia contexts has always been underestimated whereas today has slowly surfaced again. The short explores the manifold and contradictory 'Ndrangheta female universe in Calabria. It explains - starting from reports, documents, traditions, rituals, testimonies, words and judicial documents, the 'Ndrangheta telling the stories and the figures of women that inevitably settle and serve calabrian clans. Everything starts with a quite enlightening syllogism: family is the core element of the 'Ndrangheta, woman is the core element of the family, woman is the core element of the 'Ndrangheta. Analyzing the real universe of the 'Ndrangheta’s mechanisms we realize the real role of women, often extremely important even if destined never to be formally recognized by the organization.
Rosa is a young rebel girl who lives with her grandmother and her uncle in a remote part of Calabria, in Southernmost Italy. Her mother's untimely death when Rosa was a child casts a gloomy shadow on her present life.
The Ndrangheta is the most powerful branch of the mafia which has a stranglehold on Southern Italy.