Death in Palermo
Death in Palermo reveals the farce behind the Rotoli cemetery in Palermo, Italy, and its treatment of the dead. Renowned filmmaker and anthropologist Caterina Pasqualino uncovers the tragic story of ‘the waiting dead’, where over 1,500 deceased have been waiting years to be buried, as their grief-stricken relatives are held hostage to bureaucracy, bad politics, and, in some cases, Mafiosi bribes in their fight for a final resting place for their loved ones. This situation prompts Caterina Pasqualino to make enquiries at the cemetery and in the city, where she meets some Palermitans who weave complex relationships with their deceased loved ones. She tiptoes into the stories, into their lives, and among their dead, to explore that thin border that exists between life, death and the poetic desire for rebirth.
2024 (66 mins)
Director/filmmaker: Caterina Pasqualino
Producer/production company: Angelo Barbagallo
Country of production: Italy
Country/location of film: Italy
Screening: 18:40 Thurs 9th Oct at the Museum of Macedonia
Caterina Pasqualino is a film-maker and an anthropologist (Director of research at the CNRS, teaches at the EHESS). She works on the relationship between art and anthropology, particularly on performance as an issue of identity and politics (Les Gitans flamencos d’Andalousie, CNRS édition MSH, Paris, 1998; El contagio emocional, Editorial Universidad de Granada, colección Antropología y Estudios Culturales, Granada, 2022). Recent work has led her to conceive the anthropological field as a performative device for collaboration, staging and reconstruction.
NAFA 2025 