The Kingdom 

This stunning first film by director Julien Colonna turns the gangster genre inside out. In Corsica in 1995, a young girl named Lesia is suddenly moved from her aunt’s care to a villa on a lake, inhabited by a group of men who we discover are members of the Corsican Mafia. We find out that she is the daughter of their notorious leader, Pierre-Paul. As the film develops, we piece together clues about the mob’s activities as her relationship with her father deepens. Gang war looms and, despite bursts of violence, the film becomes a love story between a father and daughter. The Kingdom’s publicity does not mention that the director is the son of Jean Jérôme Colonna, who was described in the New York Times as Corsica’s last remaining “godfather.” Colonna died in a flaming car crash in 2006. This autobiographical background explains the story’s compelling focus on the parent-child relationship. The excellent cast of non-professionals infuses life without artifice. Novice actress Ghjuvanna Benedetti, a dead ringer for the figure in Delacroix’s painting “Orphan Girl at the Cemetery”, makes Lesia a soulful figure.