Shooting the Mafia

In the streets of Sicily, beautiful, gutsy Letizia Battaglia pointed her camera straight into the heart of the Mafia that surrounded her and began to shoot. The striking, life-threatening photos she took documenting the rule of the Cosa Nostra define her career. Battaglia was quite the catch. She married young and had children, yet her restless spirit refused to renounce her passions. Breaking with tradition, she devoted herself to photojournalism. Battaglia’s lens was defiant: though her life was in danger she fearlessly captured everyday Sicilian life - from weddings and funerals to the brutal murders of women and children - to tell the narrative of the community she loved that had been forced into silence. In Shooting the Mafia, filmmaker Kim Longinotto breaks from her vérité past and stunningly weaves together Battaglia’s heart-wrenching black-and-white photographs, rare archival film, and candid conversations with Battaglia herself. This audacious documentary brings grit, texture, and critical new perspective to Battaglia’s work and dismantles the romantic narrative of the Sicilian Mafia from the perspective of someone who lived inside it. (Sundance Film Festival)