“The Theory of Contrasts” is the documentary made by Just Maria Films and produced by Duca di Salaparuta, dedicated to the cultural terroir of the coast between Bagheria, Aspra, Mongerbino and Casteldaccia.
Thursday, June 27, the premiere at Villa Cattolica.
A tribute to the past and an embrace of the present, this is “The Theory of Contrasts” the documentary made by Director Carlo Loforti and produced by Duca di Salaparuta, which will be premiered Thursday, June 27, in the spaces of Villa Cattolica, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary celebrations of Duca di Salaparuta.
Renato Guttuso, Mimmo Pintacuda, Ignazio Buttitta, Ferdinando Scianna and Giuseppe Tornatore, different generations in comparison who grow up, live and represent the world they are part of, which rises up, reflects and rebels.
Eighteenth-century villas and coastal landscapes, citrus gardens, although trapped in a contemporary urban disorder that has grown out of proportion, stratified in time and space, continue to exert their imaginative power, suggesting that Theory of Contrasts that the city of Bagheria, between orange blossom and lime, offers to those who know how to look at it with more depth. It is a unicum of lived lives that, through painting, words and vision of things, reconstructs-between necessary memory and new languages-the deposit of a land fertile for Art and Culture. Salt of an outspoken and contradictory land, the same one that has seen the proliferation of unique characters who with their talent have brought Sicily and its beauty to the world.
The Palermo-based director brings it to life through the words of historian Rosario Lentini, anthropologist Ignazio Buttitta, writer and screenwriter Paolo Pintacuda, director Nico Bonomolo and painters Michele Ducato, Alessandro Bazan, Arrigo Musti.
The anger and ferment of the twentieth century gave vigor and meaning to a strongly identifiable territory, small only in its borders. But history is not only a past, it is also a great present. In the place where it all began, Duca di Salaparuta, with this documentary made as part of a broader oenocultural project inaugurated on the occasion of its 200th anniversary, recovers its roots, gives unprecedented horizons with a program of enhancement face to face with art, culture, and people’s lives.
In the wake of this contamination, with the milestone of 200 vintages, the painting of Renato Guttuso, the photography of Mimmo Pintacuda, the vivid colors of the Sicilian cart painter Emilio Murdolo, well present in the restyling of the winery’s most representative labels, have been restored.
“Duca di Salaparuta is deeply linked to Bagheria, always has been,” explains Roberto Magnisi, Director of Duca di Salaparuta Wineries. “The Theory of Contrasts’ delves with visionary lucidity into the interweavings – material and immaterial – of a cultural Terroir that never ceases to bear new fruit and new insights, calling everyone to grasp its projection towards the new generations. Carlo Loforti, without rhetoric, relying on the expressive power of images and words that become testimony, gets straight to the soul, tracing the human and artistic ties that have animated a land naturally devoted to beauty. We cannot but be inspired by it.”
“The Theory of Contrasts,” sponsored by the Municipality of Bagheria and the Municipality of Casteldaccia, was produced by the Just Maria production company. The presentation of the documentary will feature an opening contribution by Giuseppe Prode who, after the screening, will give a talk with the protagonists of the docufilm.