Using the technique of categorical absorption of singularities we prove that the nontrivial components of the derived categories of del Pezzo threefolds of degree $d \in \{2,3,4,5\}$ and crepant categorical resolutions of the nontrivial components of the derived categories of nodal del Pezzo threefolds of degree $d = 1$ can be smoothly deformed to the nontrivial components of the derived categories of prime Fano threefolds of genus $g = 2d + 2 \in \{4,6,8,10,12\}$ . This corrects and proves the Fano threefolds conjecture of the first author from (Kuznetsov in Tr. Mat. Inst. Steklova 264:116–128, 2009), and opens a way to interesting geometric applications, including a relation between the intermediate Jacobians and Hilbert schemes of curves of the above threefolds. We also describe a compactification of the moduli stack of prime Fano threefolds endowed with an appropriate exceptional bundle and its boundary component that corresponds to degenerations associated with del Pezzo threefolds.
