Speaking to me on a hot summer’s day from her home in the southern Italian city, overlooking the calm Mediterranean Sea, Dante describes how Palermo’s evocative atmosphere provides endless inspiration for her as an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and film director.
“Palermo is a very theatrical and ‘extreme’ city; it gives me many ideas,” she says.
“Once, I found an old coffin leaning against a garbage can!
“There was no one inside, of course, but it was a dazzling sight that I’ll never forget.
“Palermo is this: the extraordinary in the ordinary.”
Perhaps that image engrained in Dante’s memory planted the seed for her latest film, The Macaluso Sisters.
Having recently made its Australian premier at the Melbourne International Film Festival after contending at the Venice International Film Festival in 2020, the deeply poignant drama is an adaptation of Dante’s highly-acclaimed eponymous 2014 play.
The film tells the moving tale of five sisters whose lives are forever changed by a trauma experienced in their youth.
Maria, Pinuccia, Lia, Katia and Antonella are orphans struggling to raise themselves in their rundown Palermo apartment, where they carry on their parents’ business of renting out family-bred doves for use at celebrations such as weddings, funerals and birthdays.
The film visits the characters in three key stages of their lives: adolescence, adulthood and old age.
Twelve actors play five characters between them, beautifully portraying three distinct stages of womanhood.
From Palermo’s streets to the siblings’ sparse flat, The Macaluso Sisters traces a bittersweet story of family bonds, loss and living on.
While the play was adapted in many ways to fit within a cinematic context, the main theme is threaded throughout both.
“We changed the story a little bit for the film and reduced the number of sisters from seven to five, but there was already this sense of coexistence between the living and the dead in the play,” Dante says.
“We only enter the Macaluso house in moments of death; we don’t know much about their life stories because I wasn’t interested in that.
“I only wanted to meet them in three traumatic moments of separation... even though they remain connected forever.”
Dante says the adaptation gives the story of the Macaluso sisters a new life.
“The theatre rejects natural light,” the multihyphenate explains.
“Instead, the film opens the windows of the Macaluso house and lets in the sound of the sea, the sunlight, the rain and the doves; the doves are fragments of light that enter the house.”
The addition of doves in the film was another idea inspired by the scenes of Dante’s city.
“I often saw this dovecote while driving along Via Messina Marine – the same street the film was shot in – and every time I’d pass I’d stop to look at it,” Dante says.
“It’s the only dovecote in Palermo and the doves are hired for ceremonies, as in the film.
“There are moments in the day when their owner, Pierino, lets them out to get some air; I’d sit there and watch them flood out of the window.
“I’ll never forget the flapping of the doves’ wings; it’s always present in the film, as though it were the heartbeat of the house.”
The doves’ presence in the film also subtly alludes to the powerful call of one’s home.
“Doves born in a dovecote always return to the place they were born,” Dante explains.
“After the doves are released at a ceremony, they then return home.
“They can also be in another city; if they’re taken to northern Italy, they’ll fly for a day to return to their dovecote in Palermo... it’s incredible.”
Given this, Dante and her team had to film the doves across two locations: their actual home at the dovecote and the house where the film was shot, at the other end of the street.
“We filmed the dovecote to get shots of them leaving and returning, then used special effects to transpose it into the scene,” Dante says.
“Then we reconstructed the inside of the dovecote at the filming location; Pierino would bring the doves to the location in cages and they’d fly home on their own after filming.”
Another important feature of the film is the house itself, which is explored more intimately in certain scenes, in the absence of the sisters.
With her captivating and poetic command of language, Dante describes the house as “a mother who never gives birth”.
“She carries the sisters until the end of their lives,” the director adds.
“When the sisters leave the house and close the door, she continues to live.”
A scene from the film. (Photo: Melbourne International Film Festival)
Many of Dante’s masterpieces are created through a strong feminine lens and her passion for portraying a female perspective is evident even when she talks about the film from a technical side, explaining the use of handheld camera shots.
As its name suggests, this particular filming technique refers to when the camera is carried by the operator, as opposed to being mounted on a tripod, often creating an uneven movement.
“For me it’s important that the camera is in the middle of the scene... that it sneaks in, even in an unauthorised manner,” Dante says.
“This invites the audience in.
“You feel the movement at times, because the camera breathes as the actors breathe... she’s an actor too.”
With an all-female cast, and a female director, producer, screenwriter and camera operator, The Macaluso Sisters is a showcase of feminine ingenuity and talent.
Dante believes the time has come for women to shine, and she is leading the way one masterpiece at a time.
“I think I’ll write for women all my life,” she says.
“My mother was a housewife all of her life; this is a way to repay all of the love that she gave to my family without receiving anything in return.
“My work is dedicated to her and to all women.”
The Macaluso Sisters is a celebration of womanhood, a reminder to let go of guilt in life and a contemplation of the strong ties that hold a family together, for better or for worse.
The film is a shining example of Dante’s incredible talent, creativity and vision.
It takes a special kind of person to be able to see the extraordinary in the ordinary.
