Roland Wounded (2013)

The puppets in the storage room of a small Palermo theater lament their fate. Between mass tourism and human heritage, no one seems to listen to the Pupi anymore. True, things in Europe could hardly look worse. Already in 1975, Pasolini was announcing the Disappearance of the Fireflies and the impending triumph of the Castle of Lies. 40 years later, a French filmmaker travels to Sicily for the first time in search of new political hope. Little by little, his personal narrative blends with a puppet drama marked by the melancholic Pupi prince Orlando, suffering from a mysterious festering wound. Mafia, shameful homosexuality, general non-involvement, despite his realistic view of contemporary Sicily, the filmmaker's journey turns into a magical extravaganza. As Georges Didi-Huberman has intimated, perhaps we have reason to believe in the Survival of the Fireflies?