Based on real events described in Gioacchino Criaco’s novel, 'Black Souls' is a tale of violence begetting violence and complex morality inherited by each generation in rural, ancient Calabria, a real-life mafia (‘Ndrangheta) seat in Southern Italy. The Carbone family consists of three brothers, Luigi (Marco Leonardi) and Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) who are engaged in the family business of international drug trade and Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane) who has remained in the ancestral town of Africo in the Aspromonte mountains on the Mediterranean coast—herding goats. His 20-year old son Leo (Giuseppe Fumo) has little respect for his farmer father, but idealizes his Mafioso uncles. When Leo shoots up a bar owned by a rival family with a longstanding blood feud with the Carbones, his reckless actions create trouble that brings the whole family back to Africo for the inevitable bloody showdown.