My Sicily, 1976 (16mm negative, 2K/sound scan)

Location: Palermo, Italy/Syracuse, Italy/Portella delle Ginestre, Italy/Gela, Italy/Montevago, Italy/Vittoria, Italy Creator: Antonio Vergine The film is a real investigation into Sicily and the various dramatic problems that have characterized this Italian region for years: life in the working-class neighborhoods of cities; an analysis of the sanitation and urban conditions of the main Sicilian centers. The document is also intended to be a complaint of that national shame represented by the situation in the Belice Valley eight years after the terrible earthquake. In the film, the landscape of the island's industrial development takes on particular importance, with all its contradictions and its characteristics of chaotic and uncontrolled expansion. The testimonies of the inhabitants highlight the responsibilities deriving from a misgovernment of more than thirty years and highlight the profound deficiencies of essential social services, the growing unemployment, the drama of emigration. The documentary also expresses the growing will to fight of the Sicilian people to get their land out of the conditions in which it was maintained for so long. The song “Io Vulissi Travagghiari” is sung by Ciccio Guarino, a young man from Vucciria, arranged by Mario Modesto. 01. Title: My Sicily “C'è cu mancia e cu talia av'a finiri 'sta camurria” 02. Protesters with red flags and banners parade through the city streets 03. Children play on the sides of a sidewalk, one of them starts a fire with boards and paper 04. Quick images of people who, interviewed on the street, seem to express their discomfort 05. Portella della Ginestra. Sequences from the film, “Salvatore Giuliano” by Franco Rosi. View of the mountains that are the crown of Palermo. Memorial plaque for May 1, 1947 06. Images reconstructed in b/w evoke that tragic day. At a rally, farmers demand water, electricity and education. Gunfire in the crowd, ambush by Salvatore Giuliano's gang. 11 victims 07. Color images from June 15, 1975. Boys in the parade run waving red flags, crowds gathered in the square. Close attention to the title of the Unit that focuses on the word 'PCI' 08. Enrico Berlinguer during a rally. Fists raised 09. Palermo, November 10, 1975, 60,000 demonstration. Mayors from 50 municipalities participate. Among the banners a 'Belize National Shame' 10. Images in b/w portray former emigrants in line sent back home by the crisis of European capitalism 11. Color images. A bleak overview of the abandoned plain of Gela. Petrochemical plants 12. Photo of Giovanni Gioia (provincial secretary of the DC), Vito Ciancimino (councilor for public works in the '60s and mayor for less than two months in 1970) accused of having reduced Sicily to the bone. Some interviewees report low employment 13. Palermo streets of a working-class neighborhood: a bell tower, the Vucciria market and a room in the crowd. Balconies with walled windows, a woman complains about their degradation. Interior of a humble home 14. In dialect, a young woman screams her miseries, a woman hopes for a communist Palermo that will care about poor people 15. Photos in b/w and images reminiscent of the people of Palermo taking to the streets due to the lack of water and the techniques to stock it up 16. In general of the Great Mato Dam. Large artificial lake 50 km from Palermo, unused 17. Scene from 'The Mattei Case' by Francesco Rosi, with Gian Maria Volonté 18. The industries included in the area that goes from Syracuse to Priolo are moving slowly. Do they remember Rasio, Sincat, Montedison 19. In the industrial area of Gela. Woman sitting outside the front door complains about the abandonment of that land. Interview with the workers of the ANIC 20. Demonstration during the general strike in Gela on 27 February 1976. Banner “Italian Communist Party - Sez. Gela Factories” 21. Children play in the garbage and in the rubble of the buildings. A man accuses the DC of thirty years of bad governance 22. Cittadella Anic, a neighborhood detached from the rest of the country. A sign reads “Anic. Residential neighborhood - Private property within the neighborhood is prohibited from posting.” The luxurious facilities 23. Overview of popular neighborhoods in Gela. Open sewers, boulders on the street, bad roads. Interior of a poor house 24. Numerous rooms in the Anic smokestacks. Interview with two ANIC workers who complain of a lack of overall development in the area due to the voluntary carelessness of the industrialists 25. Montevago earthquake victims describe the pitiful condition of the inhabitants of the shacks and the lack of employment 26. Rubble left after the earthquake in Belize and first reception accommodation. Interior review 27. Santa Ninfa, the first houses and streets rebuilt after the damage, but still uninhabited. Superfluous works such as: The Gibellina sewers (TP), the streets of Salemi, the “axis of Belice” (Santa Ninfa-Gibellina), Punta Raisi - Mazzara. I waste 350 billion 28. A newspaper is entitled: “Belice's anger has arrived in Rome”, above the title “Wake up Moro, give us homes and work.” Another title: “The billions pass the barracks remain”; “The Belice Valley does not cry but fights” and then “So many billions promised to the barracks. When are the houses?” 29. A citizen, during a popular assembly, lashes out against the political class's inability to govern. Others, on the other hand, claim a home and no longer state indifference. 30. Images of the crowded streets of Syracuse. Interview with unemployed young people 31. Vittoria (Ragusa). Large agricultural area on which large greenhouses have been erected, where tomatoes, peppers, eggplants are grown 32. Tumarrano Valley (Cammarata). Interview with a pastor. Scenes of pastures, stables, vineyards, social cellars and citrus trees. Other interviews 33. Trade union demonstrations. Slogans chanted: 'Dams, Reforms, Afforestation', 'Emigration No, Work Yes', 'Sicily, Sicily, My Sicily, there's a tip and a cut. Camurria is finished.”