DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL - Shooting the Mafia

My thoughts:
I chose to watch this movie from a different angle perhaps from most people. I chose to see it as a 50 year portrait of a strong amazing woman. The film is perhaps stronger on her photography work documenting the history of the Mafia from the 70's to the 90's in Palermo, Sicily. She documented the history of the Mafia through bloody corpse photos. They were gruesome. I had to close my eyes and just listen to the background information of what was happening in that era.

SFFILM Program description:
Description

Bold and brash, Sicilian photojournalist Letizia Battaglia began her brilliant career late in life, after divorcing at 35 in the early 1970s. Working for a left-wing Palermo newspaper, she documented the local Mafia’s rise to power and its societal impact, accumulating a record of over 600,000 images. Anchored by Battaglia’s vivid and graphic work and her engrossing personal reflections, the latest film by director Kim Longinotto (SFFILM Festival POV Award 2015) weaves Battaglia’s life story with the Mafia’s bloody history, illustrating the anxiety and fear of this tumultuous time.

“Director Kim Longinotto’s unerring eye for a great subject is underlined by Shooting the Mafia. Fearless photojournalist Letizia Battaglia has been an eyewitness to history in her native Palermo, capturing indelible images of the brutal atrocities of life under the Mafia. Her personal story, and the wider picture of a society living in fear, make for a compelling and moving documentary.” —Allan Hunter, Screen Daily

DirectorKim Longinotto

Kim Longinotto studied cinematography and directing at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England. While studying at NFTS, she made a documentary about the draconian all-girls boarding school she attended as a child that was shown at the London Film Festival. She has continued to be a prolific observational documentary filmmaker ever since. Her films have won dozens of top awards at festivals worldwide, including the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in Documentary at Sundance 2009 (Rough Aunties), a Peabody award (Sisters in Law), and a BAFTA (Divorce Iranian Style, SFFILM Festival 1999). Longinotto has directed many documentaries for broadcasters including BBC, HBO, PBS, and Channel 4. For her contribution to non-fiction filmmaking, she received the Persistence of Vision award from at the 2015 SFFILM Festival.

Film Details

LanguageEnglish, Italian

Year2019

Runtime94

CountryIreland/USA

DirectorKim Longinotto

ProducerNiamh Fagan

EditorOllie Huddleston

MusicRay Harman

Print SourceCohen Media