WELCOME PALERMO
WELCOME PALERMO documentary by MASBEDO is among the 10 selected documentaries at the David di Donatello Awards 2021.
Music and sound design is curated by Davide Tomat and Gup Alcaro @ Superbudda Studio in addiction to live performances from Serena Ganci, Yuki o, Ramon Moro and Alberto N.A. Turra.
Produced by In Between Art Film for Manifesta Biennal 12, “Welcome Palermo” is a film dedicated to the rich relationship between the Sicilian city of Palermo and Italian cinema.
Taking its title from a street mural that greets anyone who arrives in Palermo from the city’s airport, the film is the feature-length documentation of Videomobile, another project who MASBEDO produced for the 2018 edition of Manifesta Biennial in Palermo.
Videomobile is an OM van from the 1970s which MASBEDO transformed into a “video wagon”, a mobile laboratory. This curious vehicle, equipped with a stage for performances, interviews, and screenings, became a multi-channel interactive installation which toured across many Palermo squares during the biennial.
The artists interviewed well-known cinema personalities from Palermo, such as the city’s mayor Leoluca Orlando, princess Vittoria Alliata di Villafranca e Valguarnera, musicologist Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi, and Sister Cornelia of San Paolo Film. The artists also spoke with cinema professionals working behind the scenes as well as with Palermo residents about the meaning of cinema, taking both participants and public on a collective exploration of the island’s special film history and of how it has shaped the cultural image of Sicily and Palermo.
In “Welcome Palermo”, interviews alternate with archival materials about the grandiose legacy of directors Luchino Visconti, Ugo Gregoretti, and Vittorio De Seta, performances by writers, DJs and Palermo residents who recite questions on sexuality asked by Pier Paolo Pasolini in his film Comizi d’amore (1964). The film ends with a traditional dance performed by members of the Palermo’s Tamhil community in the ballroom of the city’s Palazzo Gangi, the set of the final scene of Visconti’s movie The Leopard (1963).