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IFC to Screen 'Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy' Puppetry Doc

The IFC Center screens the 2009 puppetry film, “Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy,” on January 8 with a Q&A session with actor John Turturro and director Roman Paska.

NEW YORK --

As part of its Stranger Than Fiction documentary film series, the IFC Center in New York will screen Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy, to be followed by a Q&A session with actor John Turturro (Barton Fink, O Brother Where Art Thou?) and director Roman Paska.

In Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy, Turturro takes audiences on a haunting, intimate journey to his maternal homeland of Sicily. There, while exploring the island's vanishing traditions, he is taken under the wing of one of the puppet theater's few remaining practitioners, Mimmo Cuticchio, who instructs him in the distinctively Sicilian art of puppetry.

Filmed during preparations for the Sicilian Day of the Dead, this evocative, magical-realist documentary was directed by Turturro's longtime collaborator Paska, himself a world-renowned puppeteer. Both an homage to the art of storytelling and a portrait of a Sicily little known to the outside world, Paska's film brings viewers to an otherworldly place, lost in time.

Watch the official trailer, below:

For those of you who can't make it to New York, Rehearsal for a Sicilian Tragedy is also available on DVD from First Run Features.

Source: First Run Features

Jennifer Wolfe's picture

Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.