The Lord of Snow
Italy, 2016, 52′
Director: Nello Correale
Producer: Tipota Movie Company
Until the last century, snow was traded from Trapani to Tunis on sailing ships and the ice pits (“neviere”) supplying Palermo were located on the mountains behind Monreale while one of them, the ice pit of “Busambra”, was situated near Corleone. From the Iblean plateau and from Etna, on the other hand, snow was carried to cities on the Ionian and Mediterranean coast, all the way to the island of Malta. Sicily, the land of the sun, sea, salt and wheat, has produced ice to supply cities across the Mediterranean maintaining its trading monopoly for about two centuries. By visiting the locations concerned we will reconstruct a path under the guidance of Prince Francesco Alliata of Villafranca, “the Last Lord of the Snow”, currently over ninety years old, who, starting from the slopes of the volcano that dominates the Mediterranean, will lead us to Buccheri, Monterosso, Palermo and the Nebrodi· we will tell the story of those people who have made the “cultivation” of snow an activity that has resisted for centuries grafting into the Sicilian popular culture.
