Montreal: Exceptional among major American gangland figures, Joseph Bonanno walked away from the crime family he built… and lived to tell his own story.

That story is the subject of a new six-hour Productions La Fete miniseries, Family: The Life and Times of Joseph Bonanno, filming under the direction of Michel Poulette over 80 days (mid-August to mid-December) in Montreal and Italy.

Kevin Tierney of La Fete is producing Family at a cost of $20 million in association with Hallmark Entertainment, which has international rights, and Daniel L. Paulson/Armeda Production Company. Bill Bonanno (Joe’s son) and Paulson are the series’ exec producers. Showtime Networks is the u.s. pay broadcaster.

‘To me, what’s really interesting is that this is an autobiography,’ says Tierney. ‘According to Bill, [Bonanno senior] is thrilled that it’s finally going to see the light of day. It’s been in development for a long time… and there are very few of these people who live to 93, and get to tell their own story.’

Atypical of the American mobster, Tierney says Bonanno was raised in a wealthier Sicilian family and educated to be a ship’s captain at the Naval Academy.

‘It’s the `Great American’ success story,’ says Tierney. Not only does Bonanno rise to become head of a crime family by age 26, his prominence opens the doors to the highest echelons of American public life.

Told from the godfather’s Old World perspective, Family follows Bonanno’s departure from Sicily to his meteoric rise in New York in the 1930s through various inter-Mafia battles up to the 1960s.

Leading players include Edward James Olmos (Stand and Deliver) as Salvatore Maranzano, Bonanno’s early mentor, Bruce Ramsey and Tony Nardi as the young and mature boss, respectively, Zachary Bennett, and Vincent Corazza as the notorious hit man Lucky Luciano.

The shoot has 150 speaking roles and 2,000 extras. Tierney says major cameo appearances will be announced shortly.

Family also has an exceptional number of scenes, close to 500, says Poulette (La Conciergerie des Monstres, Louis 19).

‘Bonanno was a man who had values,’ says the director. ‘Everybody says Mario Puzo [author of The Godfather] was inspired by Joe Bonanno for his story. Bonanno didn’t touch drugs and he didn’t kill innocent people.’

The story also provides firsthand insight into the mob’s role in the assassination of John Kennedy.

‘It’s not a [traditional] gangster film,’ says Poulette. ‘There are probably no more than six or seven hits.’

Poulette had to familiarize himself with certain elements of mob esthete. A case in point, when a ‘good’ family member had to be hit, ‘out of respect’ he would be shot in the face or chest, not in the back.

Cinematographer Serge Ladouceur is shooting with a two 35mm camera setup on Fuji 500 asa, 250 Daylight and 125 Tungsten stock.

Ladouceur says he draws his inspiration from the continuing storyline of Bonanno’s life and not the various suspense episodes as told in the story. The dop’s approach is ‘biographical… a film tableaux, and something that is expressionistic.’

‘From a strictly photographic point of view, I did a lot of tests to convey the passage of time,’ says Ladouceur. ‘Because we start in Sicily in 1905 to 1920, it’s going to be a little more diffused, brown and yellow at the beginning of the film. As time goes forward, the photography also evolves and becomes sharper, darker and more colorful.’

Ladouceur (More Tales of the City) won the ’97 CSC Award for best feature photography on Bernar Hebert’s La Nuit du deluge.

Guy Lalande has the big production design job on Family. Mario D’Avignon is costume designer. Denis Papillon is editor and the original music is by Richard Gregoire.

Early talks on the property with Showtime go back some 18 months, growing out of La Fete’s deepening relationship with the u.s. cable channel, says Tierney. La Fete’s Armistead Maupin’s More Tales of the City, shot here last year for Showtime, recently picked up five Emmy nominations.

La Fete has half a dozen coproduction projects in development including Gold, a dramatic tv series; Silk Road, a doc miniseries with Chinese participation; and Peter Piper, a children’s 3D animation series with German partners.

La Fete ceo Rock Demers’ latest Tales for All feature, Hathi (Elephant), is entered in official competition at WFF ’98. It was shot on location in India over 104 days between November ’96 and November ’97 and was financed entirely by the Montreal production company. Hathi was directed by Philippe Gauthier, Prajna Chowta wrote the screenplay and Ivan Gekoff was the cinematographer.

La Fete Group is actively diversifying and includes exporter Mediamax International and nature film producer Vic Pelletier.