The Virgin of Palermo is dedicated to the stories, legends and songs, that have grown around Santa Rosalia, the patron saint of the city of Palermo.
These stories hide in the town’s deepest corners, are passed on by word of mouth and have survived for centuries on the stages of large and small theatres.
The “festino”, a festival in honour of the saint, in which indigenous people as well as immigrants from other cultures participate with mediterranean temperament, is the annual highlight of the city’s life and is celebrated with deep devotion and worldly pleasures.
As a melting pot of cultural influences from Europe, northern Africa and Asia, the town is still as archaic as it was in the time in which the saint has lived according to the legend.
This is not a film on religion. It is a film on the rituals and traditions around “Santa Rosalia”, and it tells of the people of Palermo, who keep the legend alive in their songs of triumph, in puppet theatres, thoughts and feelings.
Who Santa Rosalia really was?
In this film everyone answers this question from his very personal point of view.
