‘The Godfather’ descended on a tiny Sicilian village, and it’s never been the same

The Hilltop Church Of San Nicolo In The Medieval Village Of Savoca On The Island Of Sicily, Italy. (Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

When Francis Ford Coppola cast Enza Trimarchi as an extra in “The Godfather” in 1971, the 22-year-old seamstress had no idea she was taking part in something that would change her hometown and define it for decades.

Trimarchi appeared in a key Sicilian sequence: the wedding of mafia-boss-in-waiting Michael Corleone and Apollonia Vitelli, filmed in the hilltop village of Savoca. For her, the arrival of Coppola and the film’s star Al Pacino, marked the end of adolescence in a place where life had changed little for centuries.

“I was approached by one of Coppola’s crewmen who asked if I wanted to work,” Trimarchi, now 76, tells CNN. “So many people from all over the province had come to be selected. I was enthusiastic, so young. There was nothing in Savoca, we had no running water and drank the cistern’s rainwater. We didn’t even have a television.”

More than 50 years later, Savoca — where fewer than 100 people live — remains closely tied to the film. Of the Sicilian locations used for Michael Corleone’s exile, it is the most visited.

The village has embraced that association, even though the tourism it brings has transformed daily life and contributed to the romanticization of mafia stereotypes.

Surrounded by citrus and olive groves, Savoca now receives large numbers of daytrippers between April and October. Cruise passengers arriving in the Sicilian port of Messina often join guided “Il Padrino” — “The Godfather” in Italian — tours that include the tiny settlement as well as the nearby Castello Degli Schiavi, a 19-century villa in nearby Fiumefreddo, where Pacino’s character stayed.

Trimarchi says she is sometimes asked by tour operators to meet visitors, sign autographs, and speak about the film.

“It can be exhausting, and I do it for free while so many other people, also in this village, have made tons of money thanks to ‘The Godfather,’” she said.

Honking horns, angry tourists

In the village itself, change has come gradually. A small number of bars, B&Bs — including one called Il Padrino — and souvenir shops now operate alongside older buildings that remain largely unchanged in their medieval layout.

In the low season, Savoca remains quiet. Its narrow stone streets and arched passageways connect homes built into the hillside.

The film’s legacy is most visible along the route from the church to the main square, where visitors take photos recreating scenes from the wedding sequence, and Bar Vitelli, where Michael Corleone asks to marry Apollonia.

Locals note that Savoca had some limited tourism even before the film, largely from nearby coastal areas, but say it was not economically significant.

“Since the cruisers arrived some 20 years ago the tourists are overwhelming,” says Vincenzo Pasquale, 72, who was cast as an extra at age 18 to play one of the sons of signor Vitelli, the owner of Bar Vitelli. “On some days they cram the streets and I need to honk the horn to drive through. Some get angry.”

Pasquale said interest in the film has increased over time rather than faded.

Bar Vitelli, located in a 15th-century building, has become the village’s main tourist stop and serves visitors throughout the day. During peak season, access is sometimes restricted due to crowding. The bar’s owners have opened a boutique hotel upstairs.

Filming in Savoca lasted only a few weeks in the summer of 1971, but remains a defining memory for those involved.

Trimarchi recalls Coppola displaying a sweet tooth, eating up to 10 granita, a Sicilian dessert made from crushed ice, alongside a sugar-coated zuccarata cookie. “He loved them, I guess he had never tasted one before or maybe it gave him solace from the heat,” she said.

The granita, she recalls, were made with water from the same well which supplied the village and the movie production.

“During the filming, everyone, us extras, the crew, cast and villagers drank that water,” Trimarchi said. “We drank so much of it the village cisterns ran dry for a while.”

‘She dragged me out of bed’

Before the film’s release, Bar Vitelli was known locally by a different name and run by Maria D’Arrigo, a village resident who, according to local historian Salvatore Coglitore, often hosted cast and crew after days of filming.

“She’d serve them fresh tumà cheese with salami made with local meat, aubergines and tomatoes in olive oil and house wine,” Coglitore told CNN. “She never wanted to be paid, so when Coppola offered her a blank check at the end of the filming, she tore it to pieces saying she had done it for her village.”

Coglitore has tracked down 40 Sicilians who appeared as extras in the movie and collected archival photos and plans to publish them soon in a book, “The Godfather in Savoca.”

One photo shows a bare-chested Coppola chatting on set to a very poised Al Pacino, dressed in the Sicilian traditional black coppola beret. Another, showing a tombstone of a local woman inscribed with the fact she appeared as a bridesmaid in the movie, highlights how much “The Godfather” affected the lives of those who appeared as extras.

“You need to understand what it meant for the villagers: It was like UFOs had landed,” says Coglitore. “The roads were unpaved with holes that were fixed prior to filming, there were few street lamps and the parish had to volunteer all its chairs to be placed on the piazza as there weren’t enough.”

Pasquale, a retired local municipality employee, says he would’ve missed out on earning 90,000 lire, or about $150, had his mother not woken him up in time.

“She dragged me out of bed,” he says. “I had no job, and it was more than most people here earned in a year.”

‘A total godsend’

He recalls an incident involving Pacino during the shooting of the wedding scene as the actors were struggling in dark and heavy period costumes under the Sicilian sun.

“He was sitting down in between scenes getting his make-up fixed, inside the cool chapel, under a large iron staircase,” Pasquale said. “When someone called him outside to resume the act, Al Pacino stood up and violently bashed his head against the iron, blood gushing from his head. We all gasped that he just stood there, speechless and impassive, without even saying ‘Ouch.’ He had to be medicated; I believe he almost risked getting stitches.”

Some of the extras recall how Pacino, then in his early 30s, was a relative unknown at the time of the shoot and was also quiet and reserved. Coppola, they say, was approachable and easy going. He spoke some Italian and liked to joke, but was highly demanding.

Trimarchi, who was paid 100,000 lire, roughly $165, for her cameo, recalls Pacino attempting to learn simple Italian phrases during the wedding scene. “Had I known Al Pacino would have become such a famous actor I would have asked for a picture with him but I didn’t have a camera,” she said. “He was young, not my taste though. Coppola was more charming.”

In 2022, Coppola was named an honorary citizen of Savoca, and the village continues to attract visitors drawn to the film’s legacy.

Pasquale and Trimarchi both describe their community’s role in “The Godfather” as transformative. They still get emotional recalling their brush with Hollywood and the people who made it happen.

“They were not pompous at all, the cameras didn’t scare me,” said Pasquale. “They were very simple and gave us an incredible opportunity to make our village shine in the movie. The movie was a total godsend.”

Silvia Marchetti, CNN