This , this year at its 3rd edition, was conceived to bring visibility to the mountainous village of Bisacquino, in the heart of Sicily, the birthplace of renowned director Frank Capra. At the panel, his WWII films were discussed by Elena Costa (Borgo Film Fest Artistic Director), as part of a broader conversation about Italian American literature (Prof. Laura Restuccia, University of Palermo), the ambiguous experience of the Sicilian population and Italian American soldiers at the time of the Landing (Alberto Oddo), and the relationships between film and photography during WWII with references to Robert Capa (Prof. Gennaro Schembri, University of Palermo).

The Film Festival includes screenings, round tables, and workshops, but also opportunities for social gatherings and cultural discoveries over an entire week (May 25-31, 2026). A walk around this quiet town reveals the presence of a Jewish community in the past, that of a monumental Catholic sanctuary (Madonna del Balzo), and a majestic natural spot, Mount Trona, full of history and legends. But the more obvious route for the film festival participants is the one that traces the key moments of Capra’s film career as well as the brief story of Capra in town through panels located around the village and documents exhibited at the Civic Museum. Capra was 5 years old when he was taken to the U.S. and returned only for a short visit at the age of 77, a very successful self-made man by then, but also an immigrant who was for long time part of a process of intense Americanization in institutional environments. The attachment to his Sicilian roots came late in his life and this fact continues to constitute the source of an interesting debate about identity, origin, migration, memory, and life goals.

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Introduce Evelina De Castro (Museo Riso)

Collegamento online con l鈥檃rtista Marina Sagona

Intervengono Teresa Fiore (精品成人福利在线 University, USA) e Clelia Bartoli (Universit脿 degli Studi di Palermo)

Mercoledi 27 maggio ore 18.00
Museo Riso (Museo regionale d鈥橝rte Moderna e Contemporanea di Palermo)听
Via Vittorio Emanuele, 365 – Palermo
Ingresso libero

La proiezione del video di Marina Sagona Diritto di Sangue – Rovescio di Sangue (2025) sar脿 l鈥檕ccasione per uno scambio sull鈥檌mpostazione della legge sulla cittadinanza italiana e sulle contraddizioni che genera nel trattamento degli immigrati in Italia, rispetto ai discendenti italiani nel mondo. Fondata sullo ius sanguinis, la legge crea un doppio binario, come registrato dalle interviste contenute nel video, in termini di diritti garantiti e diritti difficilmente concessi o negati, con conseguenze sulla societ脿 italiana e sulle relazioni internazionali. Nell鈥檌nvitare, appunto, a leggere la legge nella sua complessit脿 attraverso l鈥檃rte contemporanea, l鈥檌ncontro si propone di offrire riflessioni su identit脿, appartenenza e convivenza nel presente, grazie all鈥檃nalisi della storia migratoria e coloniale italiana.

– artista (DIRITTO DI SANGUE -ROVESCIO DI SANGUE)

Teresa Fiore 猫 professore ordinario (Cattedra Inserra di studi italiani e italo-americani) presso la 精品成人福利在线 University, e ha anche insegnato ad Harvard, Yale e NYU. I suoi progetti sulle migrazioni e sull鈥檈redit脿 coloniali italiane hanno ricevuto riconoscimenti da istituzioni come Fulbright, Rockefeller e NEH. Autrice del pluripremiato libro Spazi pre-occupati: Una rimappatura delle migrazioni transnazionali e delle eredit脿 coloniali italiane (Mondadori, 2021), ha pubblicato in pi霉 lingue su riviste, cataloghi e volumi, contribuendo a ridefinire i confini del pensiero migrante. Nel 2019 猫 stata insignita del titolo di Cavaliere dell鈥橭rdine della Stella d鈥橧talia per il suo lavoro di diplomazia culturale tra Italia e Stati Uniti attraverso il coordinamento di programmi culturali che valorizzano regolarmente anche la Sicilia ().

Clelia Bartoli, docente di Diritti umani e politiche migratorie presso il Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza dell’Universit脿 di Palermo, coordina il corso di Laurea magistrale in 鈥淢igration, Rights, Integration鈥�. Ha condotto diverse ricerche-azione partecipative che combinano etnografia, diritto, filosofia e educazione sperimentale. Di recente ha coordinato i lavori di scrittura dal basso di una legge sui servizi per le dipendenze patologiche, approvata all鈥檜nanimit脿 dal parlamento siciliano (Legge 26/2024). 脠 autrice di diversi volumi, tra cui: Razzisti per legge. L鈥橧talia che discrimina (2012); Legal clinics in Europe. For a commitment of higher education in social justice (2016); Inchiesta a Ballar貌. Il diritto visto dal margine (2019); Chile Revolts: from the Uprisings Toward the Constitutional Process (2022).

Presentato per la prima volta con la curatela di Teresa Fiore all’interno di una mostra all鈥檈x-carcere di Agrigento in occasione di Agrigento 2025 Capitale italiana della cultura (con l’ospitalit脿 di , con il sostegno di Fondazione 2025, Ministero Italiano della Cultura, Regione Siciliana e la co-sponsorizzazione dell鈥橧nserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies della 精品成人福利在线 University, USA), il video Diritto di Sangue – Rovescio di Sangue di Marina Sagona (20 min., canale unico, colore, suono) 猫 al momento inserito nell鈥� organizzato e prodotto dal Museo delle Periferie a Roma.

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The Ecocultures of the Scala dei Turchi is a digital and environmental humanities research project that offers alternative paths to experience the iconic “Turkish Steps” geological formation in the Province of Agrigento in Sicily. Co-conceived and co-realized by Prof. Vetri Nathan (UCLA) and Prof. Teresa Fiore (精品成人福利在线 University), the project is based on Prof. Nathan’s research on the co-existence of various species and forms of life (vegetable, animal, human, mineral, etc.) in his Multispecies Futures Lab at UCLA. This event will officially unveil the project for North American audiences and feature a lively conversation among the various researchers involved.

Speakers:

• Dr. , Associate Professor, European Languages and Transcultural Studies, UCLA, Lab Founder and Director -Multispecies Futures Lab
• Dr. Teresa Fiore, Professor of Italian and Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies, 精品成人福利在线 University
• Dr. , Lecturer and Project Scientist, Digital Humanities Program, UCLA
• , Research Assistant
• , Project Digital Tech Research Assistant

Originally launched as part of the project, within the initiative Agrigento Capitale della Cultura 2025, the project is hosted on an ArcGIS platform and has been supported by an inter-university partnership (UCLA and 精品成人福利在线 University) and local entities, including the Comune di Realmonte and the Polo Universitario Territoriale di Agrigento, Universit脿 di Palermo. This specific event is sponsored by:

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Linked to a class on Italian American film taught by the director Dr. Fulvio Orsitto that explores issues of the mixed cultural identity of Italian immigrants and descendants in the U.S., the talk allowed the students to explore how this identity was further complicated as Italian descendants were sent back to Italy as fighting soldiers and governing officers of the AMGOT (Allied Military Government Occupied Territories). Included in President Roosevelt’s strategy of turning the American forces from enemies to relatives, this approach proved to be successful as illustrated in the Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (1944) and its film adaptation by Henry King (1945), which were at the core of Fiore’s talk for the attention they also pay to food availability during the war.

The second part of the talk was an interactive session in which students were invited to look at Fiore’s gallery of video clips about food practices around the time of the Landing. The students’ comments and questions about the interviews with direct witnesses of the war opened up a debate about content and methodological issues, from the differences in food access depending on social class and geographical location to the tension between actual experience and recollection, as well as institutional historiographic reconstruction and propaganda about hunger and feeding.

The talk was part of Fiore’s current sabbatical project titled听鈥淢emories of the Landing,鈥�听the in-progress documentary that she is working on in collaboration with Awen Films.

Blending excerpts from audiovisual archival material, literary sources, and original video-interviews with direct witnesses of the 1943 Allied Landing in Sicily, the presentation read a largely forgotten pivotal historical event of WWII through the lens of foodways. In Fiore’s approach, as a memory and narrative device, food allows for an alternate history of the liberation campaign through complicating both the myth of the Land of Abundance incarnated by the U.S. military forces and the image of a destitute Sicily that the Americans embraced.

Included in the Jerre Mangione Lecture Series and sponsored by the Center for Italian Studies, the lecture fostered a lively debate among graduate students and faculty alike with a mix of touching family recollections, intellectual curiosity towards the subject, and careful inquiry about the research methodology.

This ever-expanding site available in both and , and configured in mobile-friendly mode accessible via cell phone, is an aggregator of pre-existing forms of knowledge as well as new textual, video, and audio material, gathered in collaboration with professors of the University of Palermo (including the Agrigento branch, Polo Territoriale), environmentalist guides, chefs, photographers, architects, local residents, etc., and co-implemented with Ph.D. students Giacomo Frazzetta and Do臒a Tekin. The project was co-sponsored by the Agrigento 2025 Foundation, the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Region of Sicily, the Municipality of Agrigento, the Inserra Chair (精品成人福利在线 University), and UCLA, with the logistical support of the Municipality of Realmonte.

The project has already been covered in other media: , , and .

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Dr. Fiore shared information about the condition of Italian Americans at the time of Pearl Harbor and described their paradoxical experience of being at once “enemy aliens” in 1942 and supporters of the military efforts with the drafting of large numbers of soldiers of Italian descent, while also being concerned about the fate of their relatives back in the country of origin, since Italy was an enemy up to the Landing. Dr. Fiore also illustrated how the 82nd anniversary of the Landing was celebrated in Licata as part of the programs of Agrigento Capital of Culture 2025. Since the main topic of the evening was indeed the cultural value of the memory of the Landing as part of public history projects, she provided a model that embraces a multi-disciplinary approach in line with the mission of and its Italian chapter, (see SBARCO).

British cemetery (Siracusa)

While this history remains quite unknown to the general public in the U.S., and in Sicily it is still narrated by locals in a fragmented and often partisan way, the landscape tells powerful concrete stories of Italian defense systems developed before the Landing, Allied military structures built after it, and pre-existing places adapted to the war needs.

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Sept. 1943 Armistice location (Cassibile, SR)

Ruins of trenches, firing positions for cannons, and fuel tanks carved into the ground, as well as well-preserved cemeteries, bunkers, plaques, bomb shelters, and quarries functioning as arm deposits have revealed to Dr. Fiore a completely new way of seeing Eastern Sicily, often visited for Greco-Roman archeological sites and Baroque architecture.

 

It is a mostly silent history that is interestingly gaining voice through thematic tours such as those designed by Daniele Valvo and theater re-enactments in key spots (see ) that evoke the experience of frantically looking for a shelter against air-bombings or sadly killing a young soldier in what was a confusing war of allies turned into enemies and enemies turned into allies.

In the process, Dr. Fiore is discovering a plethora of small associations devoted to the collection of military gear (see Operation Husky organization) as well as organizations creating small museums and offering talks and debates: the memory of the event is a space of tension where nostalgia, ideology, archival research, and modern readings interweave and clash, providing rich materials for her sabbatical project.

Italian bunker (Siracusa)

Data: Sabato 13 dicembre
Luogo: Sala Consiliare del Comune di Realmonte (Via Roma, 19) – Parcheggio in via Piazza Vecchia per accedere dall’ingresso principale del Municipio oppure via Venezia per accedere direttamente alla Sala Consiliare attraverso le scale e la terrazza belvedere.

Il sito di mappatura spessa offre percorsi di visita alternativi nella zona dell鈥檌conica Scala dei Turchi. Attraverso una lettura multispecie e multidisciplinare del luogo, attenta a botanica, biologia marina, geologia, gastronomia, cinema e letteratura, il sito invita a entrare in un mondo di storie umane e non, ben pi霉 complesso della nota localit脿 balneare, e a proteggere con cura e sapienza questo luogo tanto spettacolare quanto fragile. DESCRIZIONE DETTAGLIATA DEL PROGETTO

Ore 10-11:30 Illustrazione e lancio del sito (Prof. in collegamento da UCLA e Prof.ssa Teresa Fiore in presenza)
Ore 12-14 Visita della Scala dei Turchi con pranzo a sacco offerto dall’organizzazione
Guide: , guida naturalistica, e , educatore ambientale

Evento gratuito aperto al pubblico con pranzo a sacco incluso. Numero massimo 50 persone con previa prenotazione obbligatoria. La partecipazione alla presentazione soltanto, senza il pranzo a sacco e la visita, non richiede prenotazione.Per la prenotazione, si prega di riempire questo .

Il sito, configurato anche in modalit脿 mobile-friendly accessible via cellulare, 猫 un progetto co-ideato e co-realizzato dal Prof. Vetri Nathan (UCLA) e della Prof.ssa Teresa Fiore (精品成人福利在线 University) con il supporto dell’assistente di ricerca Dott. (UCLA) e con i contributi di professori e professoresse di UNIPA, guide ambientaliste, chefs, residenti locali, ecc. Per la descrizione completa del progetto nelle sue varie fasi si veda la pagina web.

Un evento incluso听nel progetto , all’interno di , con la co-sponsorizzazione dell’Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies (精品成人福利在线 University), UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) e il , con il sostegno del Ministero della Cultura, della Fondazione Agrigento Capitale, della Regione Siciliana e del Comune di Agrigento, con i contributi scientifici dell’Universit脿 degli Studi di Palermo e del Polo Territoriale Universitario di Agrigento, e con l’ospitalit脿 del Comune di Realmonte.

NB: In caso di maltempo, la visita della Scala non si svolger脿 e il pranzo a sacco verr脿 sostituito da un aperitivo. La prenotazione resta valida a prescindere dalle condizioni del tempo.

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Based on her sabbatical research on foodways at the time of the Allied Landing in Sicily (1943), the paper revises the narrative of the American forces feeding Sicilians through the use of eighteen interviews with direct witnesses and scholars sharing stories about the stark contrast between the local wartime food and the industrial food brought by the soldiers from the US. See webpage.

Prof. Cinotto introduced Dr. Fiore’s talk providing special insights into the impact of the landing in Italy in terms of U.S. control of the economic and socio-political sphere.听The students鈥� questions during the Q&A revealed a keen interest in historical issues, in methodological aspects linked to oral history, and in the encounter of cultures during wartime.

UNISG has an institutional commitment to videos about food. Its film archive directed by Dr. Gabriele Proglio, is devoted to oral history about food, food history, food practices, etc.

UNISG is a private university linked to Slow Food, the movement founded by Carlo Petrini in 1986. Focused on food and sustainability, the academic approach privileges collaborative hands-on projects ranging from cooking, cook-book writing, market visits, food history research, eco-agronomy techniques, etc.

The UNISG campus is a World-Heritage (UNESCO) site with its distinctive historical buildings, imposing towers, elegant courtyards, printing office for student-managed publications, student-tended fruit and vegetable gardens, and a unique cafeteria that largely relies on the produce cultivated on campus. All under the watchful eye of the snail, the Slow Food symbol, under no time pressure.