HOW I BECAME INVOLVED WITH A SICILIAN PUPPET THEATRE

I’ve painted landscapes since I was seven. And I still paint them today.

So how come I started painting backdrops for a marionette theatre in Sicily?

Especially when I’m also a working ethnographic filmmaker?

In my guise as filmmaker I met Salvatore Ingui, an anti-Mafia activist I followed with my camera for a year. 

He led a national anti-Mafia association called Libera, in Western Sicily. Its watchword is 're-education': change the culture in which the Mafia is firmly rooted.

Their work is entirely voluntary and often inventive, doing workshops in schools and commemorating victims of the Mafia. 

One of Salvatore's most engaging ideas was to create a puppet theatre in Marsala, not only telling the traditional Sicilian stories of chivalry, but to tell stories about the Mafia. This was new.

Poster for a show about the Mafia Boss Matteo Messina Denaro

I joined at the start, filming the rehearsals for their first anti-mafia show. They were ready. but the backdrops were not. I put down my camera, picked up a brush. I set to and haven’t stopped and it’s had a marked effect on my own painting.