Thanks to its breathtaking landscapes, the dreamy atmosphere, its both delicate and impetuous charm Sicily has a long and incredible list of famous Italian and foreign movies – still imprinted in our memory after decades – that have been set and shot in its territory.
Let’s discover together some of the most famous movie sets in Sicily, places that have been enchanting settings for some unforgettable scenes of the Italian cinema and today beautiful locations to spend a wonderful holiday in Sicily, especially booking a Luxury villas in Sicily of our catalogue!
Il Gattopardo (The Leopard)
It is one of those cult movie that surely left a mark on film’s history. Il Gattopardo is a 1963 Luchino Visconti‘s masterpiece based on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s epic novel, and represents a melancholy mid-nineteenth-century Sicily at the end of the aristocracy and at the rising of the new bourgeoisie. The locations chosen for this film are mainly located in Palermo, in some scenes you can easily recognize Piazza della Vittoria allo Spasimo, Piazza della Marina and Piazza San Giovanni Decollato, the famous Villa Boscogrande as Salina’s official residence and Palazzo Gangi known for the enchanting final scene of the ball with Claudia Cardinale and Burt Lancaster. For the sumptuous interior furnishings the director Visconti demanded an old-fashioned lighting with candles.
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (Cinema Paradiso)
This Giuseppe Tornatore’s milestone won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 62nd Academy Awards. The Sicilian director decided to pay homage to his land choosing different beautiful locations for the shootings. The outdoor scenes were shot in the province of Palermo, for example in Bagheria (the director’s hometown), Cefalù and its pier, Lascari and its station, and Palazzo Adriano, set of the square where the Cinema Paradiso is located and a small town that today hosts a Museum that tells the story and the backstage of the movie through 100 original photos.
Divorzio all’italiana (Divorce italian style)
In 1961 the director Pietro Germi brought a real cult on the big screen that won, in 1961, the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the lead actor Marcello Mastroianni was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role. This film touches – with the tones of comedy – delicate themes such as honor killing and divorce, still banned in the 60s by Italian law. The film was almost entirely shot in a lovely town called Ispica, near Ragusa.
The south of Sicily is the real protagonist of the entire movie: in other scenes, in fact, you can admire the Cathedral of San Giorgio in Ragusa Ibla, the port of Ognina and the Teatro Bellini in Adrano, in the province of Catania.
We could mention many other timeless movies such as The Godfather part III with the famous scene in front of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, or Stromboli by Rossellini or Il Postino with Massimo Troisi, partially shot on the isle of Salina in the Aeolian Islands.
What is sure is that Sicily still remains a great muse for directors and producers with its evocative locations that are just waiting to be discovered!
Top picture: Villa Montalbo – Boscogrande.
Author: Samuele Piazza. Source: Wikipedia
