Shooting the Mafia
2019 • 97’ • Ireland/USA
A biopic about the Italian photographer Letizia Battaglia known for her intrepid recording of the devastation caused by the mafia in her native Sicily. The feature documentary weaves together Battaglia’s striking black-and-white photographs, classic Italian movies, rare archival film, and the now 84-year-old’s own memories, to paint a portrait of a remarkable woman whose bravery and defiance helped expose the Cosa Nostra’s brutal crimes.
Director:
Kim Longinotto
Producer:
Niamh Fagan
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Sundance Film Festival 2019 [World Premiere]
– World Documentary Competition
– Grand Jury Prize [Nominee]Berlinale 2019 [European Premiere]
– Panorama Audience Award [Nominee]DocAviv 2019
– Best International Film [Nominee]Brussels International Film Festival 2019
– Audience AwardBiografilm Festival 2019
– Guerrilla Staff Award
– Celebration of Lives AwardDocuDonna Film Festival 2021
– Special AwardThessaloniki Documentary Festival 2019
Vilnius Film Festival 2019
BAFICI 2019
Valletta Film Festival 2019
Ambulante Film Festival 2019
DokFest Munich Film Festival 2019
Int’l Documentary FF ‘Encuentros del Otro Cine’ 2019
HotDocs 2019
Sydney Film Festival 2019
New Zealand International Film Festival 2019
Fantasia International Film Festival 2019
Stranger than Fiction Documentary Film Festival 2019
DMZ Int’l Documentary Film Festival 2019 [Asian Premiere]
Zurich Film Festival 2019
Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Festival 2019
Astra Film Festival 2019
Valladolid Film Festival 2019
Zinebi Film Festival 2019
Memorimage Reus International Film Festival 2019
– Jury Award
– Audience Award
Brussel Art Film Filmfestival 2019
IDFA 2019
Porto / Post / Doc 2019
Tulum International Film Festival 2019
Dart Film Festival 2020
Budapest Photo Festival 2021
Perspectives Film Festival 2021
Festa do Cinema Italiano 2021 -
“Revealing.”
— The Guardian“Compelling.”
— Roger Ebert“An affectionate portrait.”— Empire
“Fascinating.”— Little White Lies
“[The] film is unflinching and it crackles with anger but it also finds great reservoirs of humanity among these deeply personal stories of loss and pain.”— RTÉ
“A vivid documentary description of a very specific time and place.”— East Bay Express
Filmmaker’s Biography
Kim Longinotto is known for making films that highlight the plight of female victims of oppression or discrimination. She was born to an Italian father and a Welsh mother. At the age of 10, she was sent to a draconian all-girls boarding school, where she found it hard to make friends. After a period of homelessness, Longinotto went on to Essex University to study English and European literature and later followed friend and future filmmaker, Nick Broomfield to the NFTS to study camera and directing. While studying, she made a documentary about her boarding school that was shown at the London Film Festival. Kim has received a number of awards over the years, including a BAFTA for PINK SARIS. Among her more than 20 films, she has followed a teenager struggling to become a wrestling star in 2000’s GAEA GIRLS, challenged the tradition of female genital mutilation in Kenya in 2002’s THE DAY I WILL NEVER FORGET, and told the story of an Indian Muslim woman who smuggled poetry out to the world while locked up by her family in 2013’s SALMA. In 2015's DREAMCATCHER, Longinotto looked at the life and work of a former sex worker who rescues Chicago girls from the street.