The Liquidators

a feature film- suspense, thriller, drama, action
inspired by actual events
written by Jim Amatulli
director Jim Amatulli, DGA (USA/Italy)

LOG LINE

When brothers unknowingly find the true provenance of a museum’s Etruscan antiquities, they are put in jeopardy as criminals, the museum curator, and the Italian art squad, all seek the documents.

SYNOPSIS

The death of the CEO of an insurance firm sets off a series of events connected to Etruscan artifacts in The Cincinnati Art Museum. Flashbacks follow the artifacts from their creation millennia ago, through various hands over more recent decades.

Two brothers, office liquidators, buy the firm’s furniture when they move to new offices. In the late CEO’s desk, they find documents, in Italian, hidden in a secret panel. The brothers are unaware of their importance, even after they get them translated.

For many years, the museum’s curator has been paying extortion money to the late CEO to keep these very documents, the true provenance to the Etruscan pieces, hidden. But panic sets in as his legacy becomes threatened. Is he finally free? Does anyone else know? Where is the provenance?

In Rome, the Italian Ministry of Art & Antiquities has been conducting a worldwide search for looted art and artifacts- from the tombaroli to art dealers to collectors to museums. The minister, along with her assistant, travels to the US to meet with museum curators.

Break-ins, murder and personal threats convince the brothers that the papers are important, and they are forced to take action. But not everyone is who they seem. Relationships become intertwined and dangerous. The parties’ conflicting agendas culminate in an explosive, deadly confrontation between everyone in the museum’s Great Hall.