I love Italian films and attend Seattle’s Cinema Italian Style fiIm festival every November. My only regret with the Seattle’s film festival is that I have to teach during the week and I miss out on viewing many of the festival’s featured films. And I can’t stay up late at night to attend the film festival because I have to be up at the crack of dawn during my work week.
I seek out films that were shot in Sicily. I made a list of films I have watched which were set in Sicily for this blog post. And before writing this blog, I checked on line to make sure I wasn’t leaving any films out and I now feel overwhelmed with the number of films that have been filmed in Sicily which I have not yet seen.
Yesterday’s blog post was about Sicily in Literature. Some of the movies mentioned below are based on novels written by prominent Sicilian writers such as Leonardo Sciasica, Luigi Capuana, Federico De Roberto, Ercole Patti, Elio Vittorini, Vitaliano Brancati, Gesualdo Bufalino and Luigi Pirandello.
In this blog post, I will include films I have watched and would recommend. Please note that this list is NOT a complete list of movies filmed in Italy. The blog post would be too long to include them all! Also, note that I am not a professional film reviewer. I just know what I like and would like to share this list with you. Perhaps you, my readers, have watched these films or would like to watch them. Many are available on Netflix and others are available at the public library. Sometimes the films are found with their English titles, sometimes with the original Italian titles.
Angela
This film was directed by Roberta Torre and is set in Palermo. Donatella Finocchiaro plays Angela, a woman trapped in the Mafia lifestyle. It is based on a true story. For more info: link
Baaria
Directed by Tornatore. The film had a lot going on, sort of chaotic, reminded me of a Fellini film. Shot in Bagheria and Tunisia. I found it hard to follow. I mention it here because so many people really liked it.
Caro Diario (Dear Diary)
1994 Directed by and starring Nanni Moretti.
This semi-autobiographical film, for which Nanni won Best Director at Cannes, reads like a diary and is divided into 3 episodes. Link
Cinema Paradiso
This is a great film! Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1989 Academy-Award-winning film is a romantic look at growing up in a remote village. The filmmaker returns to his Sicilian hometown, Bagheria, for the first time in 30 years and looks back on his life. This film has become an Italian classic. The director, Tornatore, was born in Palermo.
Diario di Una Siciliana Ribelle (first film, a documentary, I did not see)
The Sicilian Girl (Second film is based on the above documentary. I watched this and it is really good. Based on the true story of Rita Atria, who went from devoted daughter to mafia informer.)
1997 Marco Amenta.
The first film is is a documentary of Rita Atria, a 17 year-old daughter of a mafia don who gives her diaries to the authorities to avenge her father’s death. Her evidence and work with Borselino and Falcone proved extremely valuable in the exposure and convictions of many important gangsters. Bravely told, director Amenta was so captivated by Rita’s story that he made a second film, The Sicilian Girl (2008) to explore Rita Atria’s psychological and emotional journey. The rest is history. Filmed around Palermo.
Divorzio all’Italiana (Divorce, Italian Style)
Pietor Germi’s 1961 comedy had Marcelo Mastroianni as a Sicilian aristocrat seeking a divorce when divorce in Italy was not legal. Filmed in Catania, Ispica and Ragusa Ibla.
Il Gattopardo (The Leopard)
Luchino Visconti’s 1963 film version of Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s novel. Set in revolutionary Sicily in the mid-1800s, the film stars Burt Lancaster as a Sicilian prince who seeks to preserve his family’s aristocratic way of life in the face of Italy’s unification by Garibaldi. Filmed in Palermo, Mondello and Ciminna. The costumes are incredible and it is said that a fortune was spent on making this film. The cast also features Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale, Paolo Stoppa, Rina Morelli, Romolo Valli.
Il Postino
Michael Radford’s ultra lovely romance set in a small Italian town during the 1950s where exiled Chilean poet Pablo Nerudo has taken refuge. A shy mailman befriends the poet and uses his words to help him woo a woman with whom he has fallen in love. Filmed in Procida (Bay of Naples) and the Aeolian Island of Salina. Some scenes were also filmed in Pantelleria. The main actor, the painfully shy postman played by Massimo Troisi, was having heart issues at the time of filming so they moved the filming to Procida to be near hospitals. Sadly, he died before the end of the film, but enough scenes had been filmed in order to finish the film.
Johnny Stecchino
(Comedy, translates to Johnny Toothpick) 1991 comedy directed by and starring Roberto Benigni. Stecchino (Mr. Toothpick) is a hapless bus driver who is believed to be a snitch for the mob. Filmed in Bagheria and Capo Mulino.
Kaos (Chaos)
Directed by the brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani and released in 1984, Kaos tells four stark powerful tales of old time Sicilian life based on stories by Luigi Pirandello. Filmed with haunting and mesmerizing music around Pirandello’s hometown of Agrigento. On Netflix under “Kaos” the Greek word for Chaos.
L’Uomo Delle Stelle (The Star Maker)
1995, Giuseppe Tornatore
This film, from “Cinema Paradiso” director Giuseppe Tornatore, is about a con man from Rome who, posing as a Hollywood talent scout in post-war Sicily, travels with a movie camera to impoverished villages, promising stardom – for a fee – to gullible townspeople.
To follow the locations of L’uomo Delle Stelle (The Star Maker) you need to move from one end of Sicily to the other. One can recognize: Monterosso Almo, an old village in the heart of the Iblei Mountains, and Ragusa Ibla, the old Benedictine convent just outside Gangi, in the Madonie Mountains, and the little fishing village, Marzamemi; the rural area of Casalgiordano, also in the Madonie, near the Petralies; the Gurfa Caves, a rock settlement in the territory of Alia (Palermo province), the Morgantina archaeological area and the ruins of the village of Poggioreale, destroyed by the 1968 earthquake and today used as a setting for a lot of films. The locations included in this movie inspired Theresa Maggio’s book The Stone Boudoir.
La Terra Trema (The Earth Trembles) (very old film, depressing, but a classic)
Luchino Visconti’s 1948 adaptation of Verga’s I Malavoglia, the devastating story of a fisherman’s failed dream of independence. Originally a failure at the box office, the film has emerged as a classic of the neo-realistic movement. Filmed in Aci Trezza. (on Netflix under the Italian title)
Mafioso, 1962 Mafioso is a 1962 Italian mob black comedy film directed by Alberto Lattuada.
Malena
2001 Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore
Set during WWII and filmed in Messina, this is the story of the life of beautiful Malena, her husband’s absence, a boy’s obsession, and angry townspeople. Shot in Siracusa.
Mid-August Lunch
2008 Filmed in Rome and not in Sicily, this film shows the influence Italian mothers have over their grown sons. Gianni di Gregorio writes, directs, and acts in this film! Humorous.
Nuovomondo (The Golden Door)
2006 Directed by Emanuele Crialese
It is the turn of the century and these poor illiterate farmers want to emigrate to the land of opportunity, America. This is their story, the story of old customs, courage, fears and the importance of the homeland.
Respiro
2002 Directed by Emanuele Crialese
A story of family, mental illness, and misunderstanding. Filmed on the island of Lampedusa.
Rocco & His Brothers (Rocco e i suoi fratelli)
A 1960 Italian film directed by Luchino Visconti, inspired by an episode from the novel Il ponte della Ghisolfa by Giovanni Testori. Set in Milan, it tells the story of an immigrant family from Sicily and its disintegration in the society of the industrial North. The title is a combination of Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers and the name of Rocco Scotellaro, an Italian poet who described the feelings of the peasants of southern Italy. The film stars Alain, Delon and Claudia Cardinale, in one of her early roles before she became internationally known.
Salvatore Giuliano
1961 Directed by Francesco Rosi
While exploring the Sicilian world where politics and crime exist in a turbulent marriage, Rosi sets this film in the 1950’s western Sicily. The city of Castelvetrano, the piazzas of Montelepre, the mountains, and the small villages are scenes of the life of the Sicilian Robin Hood, Salvatore Giuliano, one of Italy’s most beloved criminals. This dark Neo-Realist film tells the story of how his passion for an independent Sicily brought him to be murdered at the age of 27. The story is so captivating that Mario Puzo wrote The Sicilian a dramatized version of the story in 1984. It was subsequently made into a film in 1987. An opera entitled Salvatore Giuliano by Lorenzo Ferrero premiered in Rome in 1986
Sedotta e Abbandonata (Seduced and Abandoned)
1964 Directed by Pietro Germi
With Lando Buzzanca and Stefania Sandrelli
A masterpiece of a comedy narrating the grotesque story of a beautiful girl that is, as the title says, seduced and abandoned. Set in Sciacca, this satire on Sicilian society, focuses on the importance of saving honor.
Stromboli, Terra di Dio (a classic)
1950 Directed by Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini filmed this classic on the Aeolian Islands in 1949. Stromboli, Terra di Dio marked the beginning of Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman’s highly publicized affair.
Terraferma, directed by Crialese Drama
A Sicilian family deals with the arrival of a group of African immigrants /refugees on their island. Based on a true story and the African woman in the movie played herself and is the very person this story happened to! Very interesting and very much a current issue in Sicily since Sicily is so close to Africa.
The Italian Americans (I have not watched this yet)
2014, John Maggio Productions
The Italian Americans is John Maggio’s film about the Italian immigration experience. This four part documentary is intelligently done and while exploring how they evolved, helps to dispel many misunderstandings about Italians. It can be seen on PBS video, purchased, or rented through Amazon. (the whole series is on Netflix…on my DVD queue…have not watched it yet)
Italian TV SERIES available at the library: Inspector Montalbano (Il Commissario Montalbano) 1999, based on the detective novels of Andrea Camilleri. Very popular in Sicily. Filmed in Ragusa. Try to watch at least one of the episodes and meet the cunning Inspector Montalbano, the famous commissioner with his Sicilian riddles.
