11/12/2023 0 Comments Mafia news websites![]() ![]() Palermo Mon Amour runs at the Fondazione Merz, Turin, until 8 October 2023. "It was once a centre of great violence – but it's more love right now." "It's a city that has a great sense of love to it," she adds. Palermo is a city that's been rebuilt time and time again, says Greco, "and that definitely adds to its fascination". "It wasn't possible to imagine that when the Mafia governed." According to one travel expert, the "White Lotus effect" – named after the HBO comedy drama set on the Italian island for its second series – means it can nowadays be difficult to book a hotel room in Sicily. "Palermo is today a touristic city," says Orlando. By creating a message that a Mafia boss like Don Vito Corleone is a good man, Orlando argues, there is a risk that people "forget the Mafiosi are terrible, cruel criminals". ![]() ![]() In the 1980s, Battaglia – who dealt with her own psychiatric issues, according to Zecchin, and often photographed patients at psychiatric institutions – went on to pursue a career in politics, serving on Palermo's city council and in the Sicilian Regional Assembly. She hoped her political contribution could be as effective – or more – than her photography.įor decades, Sicily and the Sicilian Mafia have captured the imaginations of artists, writers and filmmakers. The most prominent of these, still, is Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 crime classic The Godfather – filmed in part in Sicily – which placed second in BBC Culture's list of the greatest American films ever made.īut while Mayor Orlando calls The Godfather and its star Marlon Brando "fantastic", he argues that the legacy of the Coppola movie is "a tragedy for Sicilians". Zecchin and Battaglia faced real physical threat – getting roughed up or having their cameras broken – and there were times when they covered five murders a day. For Zecchin, the most chilling moment came when Battaglia received a menacing, anonymous letter warning her to get out of the city immediately – and not to return. Going to the cinema meant leaving a note with the box-office attendant to alert them if they received a call from the paper. Zecchin and Battaglia – who died in 2022 – were also a couple, and in love. Together they organised a group of freelance photographers – mostly young people from Palermo hungry to learn the craft – to gather images for the daily, left-wing newspaper, L'Ora, which was famous for its investigations into the Mafia.Īnd their work was fast-paced photojournalism, so their photographic style about daily life in the city – and even the printing and processing of the images – had to be swift, in order to make the next edition. Sicily was at the centre of international press attention at the time, and the photographers had to be on call 24 hours a day. The brutal period is remembered as la mattanza, Italian for slaughter. ![]() Photographer Franco Zecchin remembers this life well. From the late 1970s, he worked intimately with legendary photographer Letizia Battaglia documenting the deadly gangland warfare between rival families of the Sicilian Mafia – also known as the Cosa Nostra – and the bloodshed that spilled out on to the streets of the city. Why 1960 was a turning point for Africaĭashing to cover a killing or a police arrest was dangerous enough, but worse was being dispatched to photograph a Mafia funeral. Unlike a journalist, who could blend into a crowd of mourners, being a photographer meant standing on the front line, exposing yourself with your camera in front of angry family members. And when you left your assignment, you had to be cautious to make sure no-one had followed you home. Photos that show landscapes few can see The most iconic photos of the American West If you were a newspaper photographer working in Palermo at the height of the Sicilian Mafia's power, you had to get used to being woken up by telephone calls in the middle of the night. There's been a murder, your editor would tell you, before giving you an address so you could rush to the scene. ![]()
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