Southern Italian Filmmakers Gaetano Russo and Pif talk about the Lucano and Sicilian Influences on International Cinema
Each Sunday during the winter, we will be putting the spotlight on films with a culinary twist, whether it be an article, interview or just a post on one of our social media platforms. The focus for this series will be on the southern part of the Italian peninsula- in particular, the regions of Basilicata, Puglia, Calabria and Sicily. During the summer, I traveled through central and southern Italy and spoke with a number of contemporary filmmakers of lucano origin about why Basilicata is emerging as a land of cinema. I asked these filmmakers what motivates them to stay in Basilicata when so many of their young counterparts have fled to northern regions in search of work. While in Rome, I met up with the accomplished, award-winning artist and filmmaker Gaetano Russo, who we will be visiting often in this series. He is from Bernalda and is very active in the filmmaking and artistic communities throughout the region. He is a cousin of Francis Ford Coppola and that is apparent b...