original title:
L’eresia della bellezza – Storia di Fiumara D’Arte
directed by:
screenplay:
cinematography:
editing:
music:
Chiara Cusumano, Alberto Laruccia
producer:
production:
country:
Italy
year:
2023
film run:
45'
format:
colour
status:
Ready (17/11/2023)
In Sicily, there is a hidden valley that one man has managed to transform into the largest open-air museum in Europe, known today as Fiumara D'Arte. Antonio Presti, the creator of the museum park, is a determined and dreamy patron of the arts, who prefers to call himself a 'heretic' and has been inviting the world's greatest artists to collaborate on his artistic project since 1986, with the aim of bringing art to an otherwise forgotten place.
This story of territorial reappraisal is contrasted by the judicial affair that led Presti to be convicted of building abuse and then to be acquitted, after a long time, in a ruling that made the courts.
This documentary raises the question of the blurred boundary between licit and illicit when it comes to artistic intervention in public spaces, a dilemma that still affects street art and unauthorized performances today.