Vanni il Siciliano concludes a series of three documentary films.
Philosophically speaking, the first, 1893: The Investigation, representsthe positive aspect-that of the social alternative and utopia embodied
by the Fasci dei Lavoratori movement; the second, La storia vergognosa,
represents the negative-inherent in the tragedy of emigration that
ensues after the shattering of that dream; and the third, Vanni il
Siciliano, represents the synthesis, where, on the one hand, hope for
change resurfaces, revitalized by the idea of autonomist, expressed in a
libertarian and social sense; and, on the other, the disillusionment of
those who, in the aftermath of the Second World War, witnessed the
reformation of a society they didn't recognize. Do you agree with this
tripartite division?
Nella - I'm making this point now that you're mentioning it, because I
didn't begin with this trilogy structure in mind, and therefore chose
stories that would somehow highlight it. The stories that make up the
trilogy were within me, and they emerged unthinkingly, unconsciously,
spontaneously, linked by a common thread that revealed itself to me as I
worked on the subjects. The subject of the first film I shot, 1893. The
Investigation, tells the story of the Fasci dei Lavoratori movement,
which historiography considers one of the most important in Europe, and
a fundamental watershed for Sicily: it faced the future, a future free
from all chains and oppression, because its demands undermined the
centuries-old foundations of social organization in Sicily, where a
handful of families controlled three-quarters of the territory and
wielded an absolute power that permeated the entire society and
influenced its development. That movement had the future before it, the
past on its shoulders, but it was "chained" to that past, and with it
the whole of Sicily, by another Sicilian, Francesco Crispi. Upon
becoming Prime Minister, he took it upon himself to reaffirm the status
quo and reject the new social demands that for the first time saw the
most outcast class, the peasants, emerge on the historical stage. The
past confirmed itself as a present of exploitation and marginalization
for millions of Sicilians, the fate of the island in the century to come.
Will emigration be one of the consequences of this "blocked" situation?
Nella - The common thread I was telling you about is precisely this.
Starting with the Fasci dei Lavoratori, I became curious about what
happened afterward, and thanks to historical and literary research, I
discovered that many fascenti, returning from prison after the amnesty,
returned to the fields, and, having seen that nothing had completely
changed, decided to leave. I find them on the other side of the ocean.
Emblematic in this sense is the figure of Maddalena, one of the female
protagonists of the film The Shameful Story, a character I didn't
"invent." She is, in fact, the sixteen-year-old standard-bearer of the
Fascio delle Lavoratrici (Festival of Workers) of Piana degli Albanesi
(then Piana dei Greci), and is part of the group of women Adolfo Rossi
interviewed for his Inchiesta (Inquiry), the basis of my first
documentary film. Delving deeper into the story of women who emigrated
alone, I discovered that Maddalena, after being released from prison,
continuing to lead social protests in Piana, and single-handedly
founding the headquarters of the town's Revolutionary Socialist Party,
while persecuted by delegates from the Kingdom, decided to leave with
the great emigration of 1907. She died in Sacramento, after becoming a
seamstress, her dream. I think working on a historical documentary
entails a great responsibility, and having to combine fantasy with
historical sources. I explored countless sources: police reports,
hundreds of letters from emigrants, accounts of their lives, working
conditions, and so on. A story becomes a fable if it's not included, if
it has no roots, if it doesn't describe the political context of the
time in which it developed, if it's not placed within a comprehensive
historical context. Factual stories devoid of historical context are
ultimately all the same; they don't allow for a critical approach, the
ability to establish connections, and the ability to rediscover the
signs and consequences of that past in the present. In my account of the
Great Emigration of the early 20th century, I tried to keep track of
those departures, their primary motivation, and understand what they
left behind-a history of slavery and oppression-and what they found on
the other side: so much marginalization and exploitation, certainly, but
also opportunities for redemption denied in their homeland.
What is the common thread that links Vanni Rosa to the previous stories?
Nella - I discovered the common thread with Rosa after accidentally
encountering her. When I met him, what struck me about him was his
connection to the anarchist movement because, while working on Storia
shamegnosa, and also on 1893: The Investigation, I was operating within
a well-defined political space in which Rosa also operated. In short, I
was intrigued by anarchism in Sicily, and by Sicilian anti-fascism. I
then realized that the history I had begun with, the one that with the
Fasci dei lavoratori (Workers' Fasci) was nourished by inspiration and
aspirations for autonomy, ended at the end of the Second World War. At
the birth of the Republic, autonomy was being stripped from Sicily, in
the sense that Vanni Rosa gave to that word, which is not its current
meaning, but is very much intrinsic to politics and the development of
the anarchist idea. This further stimulated me, because it revealed a
major flaw in the political reconstruction of the second half of the
twentieth century, with many distortions of what actually happened. And
at a certain point, I started looking at the starry sky and realized
that my film also reflected the years of my militant youth, feminism and
the '77 movement, Franco Piperno with his latest studies on the
constellations, and their fascination. Vanni is someone who symbolically
gazes at the stars, moving freely yet together, autonomously in an
endless and borderless space. In my film, revisiting it, it's as if I
somehow wanted to pay homage to a political movement with ancient roots,
rooted in the fight against inequality, and therefore anarchy not as a
vague concept of freedom but rooted in the ability of every human being
to self-manage and "be themselves." So it seemed right to conclude the
trilogy not so much with the character of Vanni Rosa, but with what
Vanni Rosa and the Sicilian libertarian and anti-fascist generation
represented.
And yet, at a certain point, defeat resurfaces: why didn't you want to
follow Rosa into South American exile?
Nella - I didn't want to follow him into South American exile precisely
because I was more interested in expressing a broader dimension, a
collective history, which begins in 1893 and ends in 1945. I suspend
judgment, I suspend conclusions both about him and about that entire
period. If you then look at these years of ours, and I look at these
years of mine, I don't actually find a conclusion; there isn't a defeat
but a movement of history that encompasses many things. And it can also
contain within itself the seed of a new beginning, which may be
different in form, because the times are different, but which is the
same in substance. And so the word autonomy, the word equality, all the
words of this story take on a broader meaning.
Your films are ensemble pieces in that they contain multiple cinematic
registers. In Vanni the Sicilian, however, the choral dimension-and this
is paradoxical given the fact that it is a biographical work-pervades
the entire film. There is the involvement of many people from Pozzallo
on set. Is there an attempt to go beyond the documentary film?
Nella: In all three documentaries of the trilogy, I begin with the
involvement of the locals. I consider it indispensable, because that is
where the primary roots of the story I tell lie. And by roots, I also
mean forgetfulness, oblivion, "ignorance" of the facts. And I'm pleased
that there is an exchange between me and those who live in those
territories, who are also protagonists of films that concern them
firsthand. Pozzallo, the set of Vanni the Sicilian, seemed to me like a
small, very inward-looking community. Looking out from its beaches at
the open sea, even during location scouting, I was reminded of the finis
terrae, in the sense that all of Italy and all of Europe lie behind it.
A fact from which there is no escape. So, a community that has always
lived on a border/non-border, crisscrossed by departures and returns as
physical and symbolic overcomings. I'm particularly drawn to the
exploration of borders/non-borders, geographical and symbolic, personal
and collective, and in Vanni the Sicilian this has taken on an even
broader dimension, a stronger impact than before. It wasn't easy at all,
I must say this honestly; it was very difficult. But I found the support
and friendship of many, among them Silvana Boccadifuoco, an extremely
talented assistant set designer, and Salvatore Russino, a fisherman but
also a naive painter, creating watercolors in which he searches for the
soul of his country.
We've noticed that in this latest film you've chosen to emphasize
personal yet political themes: the protagonist's relationship with his
mother, his nostalgia for his homeland, the humanitarianism that
permeates Vanni Rosa's actions and thoughts. Is there a particular way
of being behind the camera here?
Nella - The figure of the mother, in the film about Vanni Rosa, is
certainly linked to my personal/political background, because Vanni
Rosa's mother has a son, and the mother-son relationship is always
central to feminism, looking at differences. But in the other films too,
there's a lot of my experience, even if it always emerges subtly. For
example, there's a lot of my experience in Storia vergognosa, because I
am the daughter and granddaughter of emigrants, but it's never front and
center because I feel like I'd be doing a disservice to that collective
dimension that I consider fundamental, because the story I tell is made
by many, by the many, and not by the ones alone. Even in 1893.
L'Inchiesta, there's a lot of me. I found myself in Adolfo Rossi, in a
sort of small transference between this journalist behind the pen, who
steps back and gives the floor to the real protagonists of the events,
and in the end makes his observations by distinguishing between fact and
opinion, and I try to do the same thing behind the camera. A different
story concerns the female figures in the Trilogy, from Vanni Rosa's
mother to Provvidenza Rumore, the peasant woman who witnessed Lorenzo
Panepinto's murder, to Norina, the Venetian emigrant teacher based on
the character of Diletta d'Andrea, a famous anarchist militant, to
Maddalena... With them, I explored all the themes of women's
emancipation and liberation. They are strong women, who have taken
charge of their lives, yet they have been erased from history because
it's more convenient to convey the image of a weak and victimized woman,
dominated, lacking a comprehensive political consciousness.
At the end of this conversation, I ask you if the reason I didn't want
to emphasize Rosa's highly original concept of autonomy is because
today, politically, it could be misunderstood.
In - There is no doubt that there could be misunderstanding, but more
than the fear of misunderstanding - because in the end, if you research
the content, you have the material necessary to reach a clear synthesis
- I was held back by the fact that that was not the main theme of the
film but, in my vision as author and director, to close the cinematic
arc of the "Sicilian Resistance" that leads from 1893 to 1945.
https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
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