Letizia Battaglia – Shooting the Mafia

English director Kim Longinotto is known for films about women who fight oppression and discrimination. Her latest feature is dedicated to Palermo photographer Letizia Battaglia. Born in 1935, Battaglia began her photojournalism career in 1969 with the defunct Palermo newspaper L’Ora. In 1974, she began to document the mafia murders which devastated the city. She recalls those events, and the scars that the violence left on her and her colleagues.Driven to fight the mafia’s power and raise public awareness, she was on the front line with reportage and exhibitions. She became engaged in politics, and held various positions in the Municipality of Palermo and in the Regione Sicilia. The film is an intimate portrait of a great artist and photojournalist, a determined and courageous woman who sacrificed personal relationships to fight evil in her country and in her beloved city of a thousand contradictions. Through her photos, mostly black and white, she shows misery and splendor, traditions, women and children, streets and neighborhoods, festivity and mourning, daily life and the faces of power.