Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy Sicilian
Saint Rosalia (1130–1166), recognized by her crown of roses, is Palermo's patron saint. The video shows the July 14 parade in honor of the saint, and a young man who credits his cure from a grave illness to Saint Rosalia.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy Sicilian
The segment concentrates on the richness of the Sicilian dialect, a dialect which is less and less spoken. The narrator interviews two poets who recite their works in Sicilian, providing insights into the language.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy Sicilian
Giuseppe Pitrè received his degree in medicine in 1865. His patients, among Palermo's poorest, provided him with a wealth of ethnographic material.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy Sicilian
A woman performs a traditional Sicilian ritual involving the sticking of pins into an onion, accompanied by prayers, in order to bring back the boyfriend of her suppliant.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
What does it mean to be a European? Is the variety of languages in Europe an obstacle to actual unification? Umberto Eco explores these questions and offers some interesting insight.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy Sicilian
Giuseppe Pitrè loved attending performances of chivalric folk plays in Palermo. This segment follows a marionette player at Palermo's Opera dei Pupi, the same theater where Pitrè went to see folk epics.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy Sicilian
Palermo faces the sea and has a very long history of immigration. The narrator interviews a young woman whose great grandfather came to Sicily from Sudan. She is involved in educating immigrants from Africa and Asia. Pitrè was also highly involved in education.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy Sicilian
A Palermo doctor is interviewed about his practice and the African and Southeast Asian immigrant patients that he treats.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
A Palermo doctor discusses the Integration of immigrants in Sicily and highlights the successes in healthcare. Medical assistance is provided for all immigrants, whether lawful or not.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
The documentary comes to a close with an interview regarding a prison cell used during the Inquisition. The cell bears the graffiti of its inmates. Pitrè had laboriously uncovered the graffiti, but it was only rediscovered in the 1970s by the writer Leonardo Sciascia and the interviewee in this segment, Giuseppe Quatriglio, who used Pitrè's writing to find it.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy Sicilian
Adriano tells us about the book he decided to write when he turned thirty. It is a collection of stories, anecdotes, and experiences, and also contains photographs.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Me Ne Frego [I don't give a damn], was one of the mottoes of Fascism, coming originally from the writings of Gabriele d'Annunzio and employed by storm troops during World War One as a war cry for courage and daring, with the meaning, "I don't mind dying for freedom." The motto gives the title to this documentary about the influences of Italian Fascism on the Italian language. It was produced by the Istituto Luce Cinecittà, with materials from the historical Luce archives, and narrates the obscure attempt by the Fascist regime to create a new and unique language, a new “Italian” that fit the dogma of the dictatorship.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Mussolini forbade the use of dialects and the minority languages that were spoken in the regions bordering the countries to the north in favor of one language for all. Italians were bombarded by fascist propaganda and Mussolini's very frequent speeches.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
In World War I, Italians who up until then had spoken their regional dialects, found themselves fighting side by side against a common enemy. But Mussolini was interested in fighting the internal enemy.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
The segment looks at how Mussolini patterned his fiercely nationalist rhetoric after poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, while harkening back to the glory of Imperial Rome. The song in the segment refers to Balilla, an 18th century Genoese boy. In 1746, Balilla threw a stone at an Austrian official of the occupying Hapsburg Empire, which led to the War of the Austrian Succession.
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