see also
original title:
Summer 82 when Zappa came to Sicily
directed by:
cast:
Frank Zappa, Gail Zappa, Diva Zappa, Moon Zappa, Mathilda Doucette Zappa, Dweezil Zappa, Megan Zappa, Massimo Bassoli, Tanino Liberatore, Steve Vai, Thomas Nordegg
cinematography:
editing:
music:
Frank Zappa, Dweezil Zappa
producer:
Eleonora Cordaro
production:
Abra&Cadabra, Rai Cinema, Zappa Family Trust, with the support of Sicilia Region, Sicilia Film Commission
distribution:
country:
Italy/USA
year:
2013
film run:
82'
format:
colour
release date:
04/11/2013
festivals & awards:
July 14th, 1982. A young man, on his birthday, drives through Italy from North to South with his father. His destination: Palermo, the last date of the Italian tour of Frank Zappa. A memorable journey, which however culminated in a bitter disappointment: the young man never made it to the concert of his idol.
The young man was Salvo Cuccia, who, after 30 years, holds again in his hands the ticket of that concert, which he preserved, and puts together the pieces of a very peculiar moment of his life.
To reconstruct such an intense period, Salvo meets Massimo Bassoli, great friend and biographer of Zappa. Massimo tells about his time in tour in Italy with Zappa. The same tour that has given the inspiration for the cover of “The man from Utopia”, illustrated by Italian comic artist Tanino Liberatore, where Zappa is represented as cyberpunk hero Ranxerox in the middle of a deranged crowd. Massimo also recalls driving Frank to his family’s Sicilian birthplace, Partinico, in the sultry afternoon of the eve of the concert in Palermo. Here all the stories get tangled together: Salvo and his wife Eleonora welcome Frank’s wife Gail and their children: Moon with her daughter Mathilda, Diva and Dweezil with his wife Megan. Together they find what happened on that decisive night of July 14th, 1982: the air was still pregnant with the craze of the football World Cup won by Italy, a fearsome mafia war was raging the streets of Palermo, and the city was feverishly preparing for the saint patron’s festivity. The Police was very nervous that night, and this ended in a disaster: the stadium was cleared out and 20.000 fans were dispersed with tear gas. Eventually Salvo could use his ticket, but in a different way: thanks to that missed concert, today he guides Frank’s wife and children to the discovery of their origins. They are received, among ceremonies and parties, by Partinico’s major and people, together with Zappa’s fans from all over Sicily. They unveil “Frank Zappa street”, they receive honorary citizenship of Partinico, and they meet their many relatives, in an encounter between distant worlds, separated by a century. Salvo Cuccia reconstructs this complex puzzle, in which the need to tell his personal story and make a connection with his father, who died a few months after that journey, get inextricably tangled with the story of Frank Zappa’s family, and with the pictures of the Italian tour of ’82, in a story in which everybody is bound to each other in the search of his own past, but also to complete his own journey.