Country: Italy
Year: 2013
Duration: 74'
Ghosts from the past and the present inhabit the old neighborhood of San Berillo, in Catania. It is 1958: while brothels are being shut down all over Italy, San Berillo is razed to the ground and its inhabitants are deported to the suburbs. A piece of the neighborhood, however, remains intact and thousands of prostitutes from all over Italy find shelter there, creating one of the biggest red light districts in the Mediterranean. Until 2000, when a police raid forces the neighborhood’s inhabitants to abandon their homes once again.
Biography
film director
Edoardo Morabito
Edoardo Morabito (Catania, Italy, 1979) moved to Rome in 2003 to attend an editing class at the Centro sperimentale di cinematografia. He then started working as an editor for fictions and documentaries, including the documentary films Io sono Tony Scott (directed by Franco Maresco and presented to the Locarno Festival in 2010), and Andata e ritorno (by Donatella Finocchiaro, selected at the Venice Film Festival in 2011). He received a special mention in 2010 at the Solinas Prize for Documentary Films for his project I fantasmi di San Berillo, which also represents his debut in the director’s seat.
FILMOGRAFIA
I fantasmi di San Berillo (doc., 2013).
Declaration
film director
“I went to San Berillo to follow the ‘underground stories’ of those characters with whom you fall in love for their beauty and relentless attachment to life. For their surprising aptitude in reading human beings while also being easily fooled by the most unbelievable promises. For their ability to still have hope, despite everything. For their skill in opening your heart like a child’s and then being cruel like only those who have seen the abyss can be. And then also for how easily they can laugh about everything in the end, about the dire wretchedness and about themselves.”
Cast
& Credits
REGIA, MONTAGGIO
Edoardo Morabito
SOGGETTO
Edoardo Morabito, Irma Vecchio
FOTOGRAFIA
Irma Vecchio
SUONO
Riccardo Spagnol, Daniele Scialò
INTERPRETI
Donatella Finocchiaro (narratore/narrator)
PRODUZIONE
Lemur Films
Edoardo Morabito
SOGGETTO
Edoardo Morabito, Irma Vecchio
FOTOGRAFIA
Irma Vecchio
SUONO
Riccardo Spagnol, Daniele Scialò
INTERPRETI
Donatella Finocchiaro (narratore/narrator)
PRODUZIONE
Lemur Films
TFF
prizes
