| Children of Fate: Life and Death in a Sicilian Family | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Andrew Young Susan Todd |
| Music by | John T. La Barbera |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | First Run Features |
Release date |
|
Running time | 85 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Children of Fate: Life and Death in a Sicilian Family is a 1993 documentary film about life in the slums of Palermo, Sicily, directed by Andrew Young and Susan Todd.
The film is a sequel to Cortile Cascino , a 1961 documentary shot by Andrew Young's father, Robert M. Young, which depicted the eponymous Palermo slum and told the story of Angela Capra and her family. Children of Fate picks up the story 30 years on, showing Capra now separated from her husband, and the fates of her children.
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. [1]
Frank Russell Capra was an Italian-born American film director, producer, and screenwriter who was the creative force behind some of the major award-winning films of the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Italy and raised in Los Angeles from the age of five, his rags-to-riches story has led film historians such as Ian Freer to consider him the "American Dream personified".
It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas supernatural drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra. It is based on the short story and booklet "The Greatest Gift" self-published by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1943, which itself is loosely based on the 1843 Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol. The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his personal dreams in order to help others in his community and whose thoughts of suicide on Christmas Eve bring about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody. Clarence shows George all the lives he touched and what the world would be like if he had not existed.
Tommaso Buscetta was a high ranking Italian mobster and a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He became one of the first of its members to turn informant and explain the inner workings of the organization.
Salvatore Giuliano was an Italian bandit, who rose to prominence in the disorder that followed the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. In September of that year, Giuliano became an outlaw after shooting and killing a police officer who tried to arrest him for black market food smuggling, at a time when 70 percent of Sicily's food supply was provided by the black market. He maintained a band of subordinates for most of his career. He was a flamboyant, high-profile criminal, attacking the police at least as often as they sought him. In addition, he was a local power-broker in Sicilian politics between 1945 and 1948, including his role as a nominal colonel for the Movement for the Independence of Sicily. He and his band were held legally responsible for the Portella della Ginestra massacre, though there is some doubt about their role in the numerous deaths which occurred.
Leonardo Sciascia was an Italian writer, novelist, essayist, playwright, and politician. Some of his works have been made into films, including Porte Aperte, Cadaveri Eccellenti, Todo Modo and Il giorno della civetta.
City of Joy is a 1985 novel by Dominique Lapierre. It was adapted as a film by Roland Joffé in 1992. Calcutta is nicknamed "the City of Joy" after this novel, although the slum was based on an area in its twin city of Howrah.
Constance of Aragon was an Aragonese infanta who was by marriage firstly Queen of Hungary, and secondly Queen of Germany and Sicily and Holy Roman Empress. She was regent of Sicily from 1212 to 1220.
Letizia Battaglia was an Italian photographer and photojournalist. Although her photos document a wide spectrum of Sicilian life, she is best known for her work on the Mafia.
Three Days is an American television film directed by Michael Switzer and starring Kristin Davis, Reed Diamond and Tim Meadows. It premiered on ABC Family in 2001 as a part of its 25 Days of Christmas programming block and was filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. It was the last movie produced for Fox Family, as Disney-ABC officially acquired the network in October 2001. The film received a limited Region 2 DVD release, in PAL format. The film had been available on the Disney+ streaming service from launch in 2019 until October 2022.
The Brotherhood is a 1968 Technicolor mafia crime film, directed by Martin Ritt. It stars Kirk Douglas, Irene Papas, Alex Cord, and Luther Adler. The script was by Lewis John Carlino. Released by Paramount Pictures, while the film received mixed to positive reviews, the film bombed at the box office, with Paramount deciding not to produce another gangster film until it made The Godfather four years later.
Silverlake Life: The View from Here is a 1993 documentary film by directors Peter Friedman and Tom Joslin. Shot with a hand-held video camera, the film documents the relationship between two gay men — Tom Joslin and his partner, Mark Massi — as they confront AIDS, their illness, and Joslin's death.
The Pizzolungo Bombing was a car-bomb attack on 2 April 1985 undertaken by the Sicilian Mafia in order to kill Carlo Palermo, a magistrate in Pizzolungo, Sicily. Palermo had been investigating an international drug and arms trafficking network in which Italian politicians may have been involved. Palermo was injured in the attack and three passersby were killed: Barbara Rizzo and her young twin sons, Salvatore and Giuseppe Asta.
Giuseppe "Pino" Puglisi was a Roman Catholic priest in the rough Palermo neighbourhood of Brancaccio. He openly challenged the Sicilian Mafia who controlled the neighbourhood, and was killed by them on his 56th birthday. His life story has been retold in a book, Pino Puglisi, il prete che fece tremare la mafia con un sorriso (2013), and portrayed in a film, Come Into the Light in 2005. He is the first person killed by the Mafia who has been beatified by the Catholic Church.
The Sicilian Girl is a 2008 Italian film directed by Marco Amenta. The film is inspired by the story of Rita Atria, a key witness in a major Mafia investigation in Sicily.
Archipelago Films is a New York based film and television production company. It was founded in 1991 by Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Andrew Young and Susan Todd. Together, they have produced, directed, and provided cinematography for dozens of documentaries on social and environmental topics. In addition to their documentary work, Young and Todd have a filmography that include 3D Giant Screen/IMAX® films, short narrative films, museum exhibit pieces, and films for nonprofit NGOs and corporations.
Oriana Civile is an Italian singer, performer, and songwriter. She is a scholar of Sicilian traditional music and an important exponent of reviving the musical repertory of Sicilian oral tradition. Her innate performing talent and her eclectic, versatile personal voice, especially, allow her to handle many music genres: from the blues to jazz, from bossa nova to flamenco, from Argentine tango to comedy rock, from reviving folk music to exploring world music.
Cortile Cascino is a 1962 documentary filmed, written and directed by Robert M. Young and Michael Roemer. The documentary was produced for NBC White Paper, a television series that ran on NBC from 1960 to 1980. The film details the lives of inhabitants living in a Palermitano slum, in Palermo, Italy. The main focus of the film is 23 year old Angela Capra and her family. After viewing footage of the film, NBC deemed it too extreme for American viewers and two days before it was scheduled to be broadcast, NBC abruptly cancelled it.
A Wonderful Life is a 1951 black-and-white short drama film produced by the National Council of Churches of Christ and distributed by the Protestant Film Commission. It is an adaptation of Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life for the Christian film industry. Directed by William Beaudine, it stars James Dunn, Allene Roberts, and Arthur Shields. The film retells the life of an ordinary Christian family man in flashback as his family and friends remember all the good he did through his devotion to church and community. The film emphasizes the power of faith, love, and community service for living a meaningful life, together with the message that people do not realize the true worth of others until after they have died. The film was not released commercially, but was distributed to some 30,000 churches throughout the United States and Canada.
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