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Trip to mars

This project is far from trying to document the image of the modern Sicilian mafia and confirming the authenticity of the decades-long pop culture image of the island. Loud explosions and bloody attacks quieted down.

   Today the organization works much more cautiously, in hiding. You can not see it, but you can surely feel it. You can not hear it, because it's heart lies in what has been unsaid. The biggest challenge was to capture it, understand and preserve it, so that from the tons of conversations, with fear, silence and lies in the background, create a whole story, that shows that times may seem calmer, but under the surface the same war has been underway for years.

   Today, the Sicilian cosa nostra is a clever, camouflaged machine, blending into the everyday lives of people, weakening the state and controlling companies with nationwide and international coverage. It is therefore impossible to draw the boundary between the country's economy and the economy of the organization. The constant fight of the law enforcement apparatus with the mafia continues, taking over estates, but in their place new ones appear. For years the police have lacked spectacular successes. As proof of how well organized and secretive the organization structure is, is that for the last twenty-five years the "last boss", like the media like to talk about capo di tutti capi - Matteo Messina Denaro, remains elusive.

   At the same time life in the streets goes at its own pace, and ordinary Sicilians seem to ignore the world of systems, protections, and extortions they are part of.

   Somewhere high in this puzzle is our hero, Giuseppe Fontana. A friend of Matteo, his right hand, maybe his consigliere. He deliberately distributes cards, leading a fairly ordinary life,
In conversations, he balances cleverly between information that can not be revealed and signals and nonverbal messages that allow us to discern quite well in the situation.

   Our goal was to show the subjective feelings of what we saw and preserve the emotions accompanying us in their full spectrum, from admiration and enchantment to disgust and disdain. The unique experience of entering into a friendly relationship with Giuseppe allowed us to confront the image of the criminal in our heads, with what we have seen every day - a hospitable, friendly, intelligent man in love with his little homeland. On every step he tried to show us what most valuable terra di sicilia has to offer.
Neither the photos nor the text are a documentary, but rather impressions from the places we visited, the stories we listened to and the people we met, walking with Peppe in the streets of Castelvetrano, Selinunte and other cities in western Sicily.

After coming back, richer with information and experiences, nothing we knew before was certain any more. The black and white world of sharp divisions of good and evil exists in our imagination until we get to know it. Then, only questions remain.



 

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