The colors of Sicily, identifiable even when the sky is dark and the sea swells, show that nothing can affect the absolute beauty. That facing coastline called the Strait of Messina, home to myths and legends, never deceives even when it offers the eye the illusory phenomenon of the Fata Morgana. Miguel de Cervantes, a young soldier of the Holy League returning from the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, and future author of the famous novel “Don Quixote of Mancha”, landed on the Sicilian coast to heal his wounds, of body and soul, when he was invaded. from amazement and wonder as the ship approached the port of Messina: the stem of the Madonnina almost seemed to touch the clouds of a leaden sky which added charm to that glimpse of a unique landscape world.
Today that historic entrance, together with other famous passages from Cervantes’ work, lives again in the film “Don Quixote” by Fabio Segatori, whose most significant scenes of the prologue and epilogue were filmed in Messina.
A return to the City of the Strait for the director from Viterbo, ten years after «Ragazze a mano armata», and after the Aeolian parenthesis in Lipari for the 2021 docufilm «Lussu».. Sawers, later some filming in Calabria, in the Cosentino area – between Trebisacce, Roseto Capo Spulico and Castello Svevo di Rocca Imperiale – and on the gullies of Basilicata, he chose Messina and its most ancient architectural treasures to tell a timeless moral tale.
We start from the Forts in the hilly areasfrom Forte Gonzaga where the interiors of the Santa Maria della Misericordia Hospital are set up (it will be reconstructed digitally in post-production), which welcomes the wounded Cervantes. The scene of the writer’s arrival on the Messina coast was filmed at Forte San Salvatore, starting with shots at sea from Paradiso on board a pilot boat made available by the Piloti dello Strait. The sixteenth-century workmanship of the forts built with stones of the time (tuff, lava stone, sandstone) are in line with the historical location of the events.
«“Don Quixote” is set between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in the pre-Baroque era, in which a long tail of the Middle Ages persists in many countryside of the central South – Segatori told us –. Don Quixote is a man who still has his feet in the Middle Ages, but manages to look beyond. The novel presents itself as a classic of the Mediterranean culture of the time, travels through its arid lands, and shows how aridity is a condition of the time. In this sense the film is metaphorical and strongly pictorial: baroque, mannerism and surrealism are intertwined.”
The film travels through different Mediterranean landscapes, without a precise regional location: «We have that iconic sequence of windmills shot in Calabria (in Roseto Capo Spulico), and in the Calanchi of Basilicata and we created a prologue and an epilogue in Messina, with Cervantes imagining the novel during his period of convalescence in hospital.
The historical setting of Messina welcomes events that really happenedan episode that may seem minor, but from which it is easy to hypothesize that the young Cervantes could have drawn inspiration to imagine his hero. Between life and death, in the darkness of a hospital ward, ghosts, heroes who illuminate your life, can appear like in a Füssli painting. And this probably happened to the author.”
According to Osama Abou El Khair, who replaced director of photography Ugo Lo Pinto in this last tranche of shooting, the colors of the Strait did their part: «The last two days of filming were an alternation of rain and sun, with lots of rainbows. An unusual and beautiful perception, with on and off, aesthetically perfect for the landing scenes and above all for rendering Cervantes’ pain, his suffering: with the leaden sky he closes in on himself and enters the imaginative space of Don Quixote”.
But beyond lights and shadows, sixteenth-century architecture and barren landscapes, Segatori’s film offers important insights into today: «“Don Quixote” is a hymn to freedom, friendship, kindness of spirit, and contains an incitement to overcome the narrow-mindedness of our times – underlines the director – . He is a noble character, out of time, a little old-fashioned, a little absurd, but in the end he tries to do good for the pleasure of doing it, winning the friendship of the faithful squire, who will look at him as a hero. And that’s what the spectators will do too.”
A metaphorical work of everyone’s perennial wandering, admirably conveyed by the journey to discover the world of Don Quixote (in the film Alessio Boni) with his faithful squire Sancho Panza (Fiorenzo Mattu). Newcomer Ettore Ianniello plays the young Cervantes. «After an important tragedy, Cervantes suddenly changes his life, and from a soldier he becomes a world-renowned writer. Representing his struggle, both on a physical and artistic level, while creating his character, and doing so through a look, a breath, a tear, was quite complex. I do not deny that Cervantes was inspired, to outline his hero, by the Paladins of the Teatrino dell’Opera dei Pupi, whom he had witnessed during his stay in Sicily».
Produced by Gigi Spedale, the filming in Messina was strongly supported by the mayor Federico Basile and the councilor for culture and tourism Enzo Caruso, who offered historical and logistical support to the film (among the historical sources is his text «1571. Cervantes a Messina at the time of Lepanto”, published by Di Nicolò), were created in partnership with the Municipality, the Navy and the support of the Gonzaga Association, involving various city professionals, including extras, actors (Mauro Failla and Davide Colnaghi in the roles of the doctor and the hospital porter) and technicians: Cinzia Muscolino (set designer), Antonio “Morgan “Maugeri (operator assistant) and Giuseppe Pagliaro (costume assistant).
Some students from the Dams of the University of Messina and many extras participated in the set as interns. There were also Omar Melania, Rosy Trapa, Santino Smedile, Lillo Centorrino, Rosita D’Angelo and Dario Trovato. Produced by Paola Columba for Baby Films with the contribution of the Ministry of Culture, the Calabria Film Commission Foundation, the Lucana Film Commission and the Municipality of Messina, «Don Chisciotte» also stars Angela Molina (the housekeeper), Galatea Ranzi (the Mother Duchess), Carlo De Ruggeri (curate) and the actor from Reggio Calabria from Melito Porto Salvo Marcello Fonte (the apprentice). Still no news on the release date.