In order to celebrate the half century of cinema of Vittorio De Seta, the Sicilian master neglected by critics for a long time and only recently “rediscovered”, the Sicilian Regional Film Library directed by Alessandro Rais, in the framework of a European Union programme, produced this journey through cinema and memory, between past and present of Southern Italy. The filmmaker Salvo Cuccia focuses on the great change that, starting from the postwar period (1945), wiped out the local, popular, archaic cultures of the South of Italy, which were at the basis of the earliest origins of Europe. De Seta’s anthropological and poetic cinema, thanks to his ability to give voice to a vivid and many-voiced story, showed the world of farmers, fishermen, miners, shepherds while it was threatened with extinction. Today, at the age of 80, De Seta is still interested in the “forgotten classes” of the world, and shows Cuccia some images of Lettere dal Sahara, his new film (2004) on a Senegalese migrant who, after crossing the whole Italy, decides to go back to Africa. The documentary, in addition to a long interview with De Seta himself, includes conversations with writers and critics, like Consolo, Fofi, Turri, Mancini, Gazzano, and directors like Tovoli, Maresco, Pannone. Thanks to a very clear style, Cuccia’s Détour De Seta becomes an example of metacinematographic story. “An extraordinary and amazing documentary” (Martin Scorsese) that, after its participation in the Locarno Film Festival, will be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in 2005.

Salvo Cuccia

Filmmaker, videoartist, documentarist, with Détour De Seta the forty-five-year-old Palermitan Salvo Cuccia carries out a project financed by Sicily Region and realized by the Sicilian Film Library, where Cuccia works permanently. The author says that the title of the documentary refers to the method used to explore the great filmmaker’s film production: “A path made of deviations (détour), stopping on De Seta’s sets, from Sicilian mines to the mountains of Orgosolo”. Cuccia’s interest in video art starts at the beginning of the 80s. In his works, he prefers extempore music, like in Shiki (1993, with Gianni Gebbia and Tadashi Endo), in Duo (1993, with Peter Kowald), in Angelica (1995, with Fred Frith and John Zorn). He participated, among others, in Belo Horizonte, Paris, Annecy and Locarno festivals. He directed many documentaries, like Raul not making on Raul Ruiz (1994) and Tokyo no megakure suru kodomotachi on Japanese children, produced by Pitti Immagine (1996). He also directed two short films: Un sogno di lumaca (1995, second prize at the Turin International Festival of Young Cinema) and Terra Madre (1996).