Farewell to Letizia Battaglia, historian photojournalists, witness and narrator of news and mafia events. Born in Palermo on March 5, 1935, she began her long and brilliant career in 1969 collaborating with the newspaper L'Ora, the only woman among many male journalists and reporters. In 1970 she moved to Milan but after a few years she returned to Palermo to found, with Franco Zecchin, the agency "Photographic information".
Letizia battaglia
On January 6, 1980, she was the first photojournalist to arrive at the place where he was murdered Piersanti Mattarella, governor of the Sicilian region. A dramatic moment that Letizia Battaglia immortalizes while her brother Sergio, current President of the Republic, holds Piersanti's lifeless body.
Internationally renowned photographer, she tells Palermo with its lights and shadows, its deaths from the mafia but also its culture and its magnificent traditions. She is awarded with numerous awards such as theEugene Smith, ex aequo in 1985 a New York with the American Ferrat woman, and the 'Eric Solomon Award. He collaborates with the most important world news agencies. In 1999 she was awarded the prestigious Mother Johnson Achievement for Life.
A courageous witness of our times
After the assassination of judge Giovanni Falcone, on May 23, 1992, Letizia Battaglia moves away from the world of photography and in 2003 she moves to Paris. But the call of her native land is too strong and after 2 years she returns to Palermo where, in 2011, she exhibits her works on the initiative of the Palermo Pride. In 2008 she appears in a cameo in the movie Wim Wenders Palermo shoot. And, again, in 2017 he inaugurates the International Center of Photography directed by her. While in 2019 she is the protagonist in Venice of a retrospective monographic exhibition dedicated to her extraordinary career.
Active in social and political matters, in 1979 she was one of the founders of the Documentation Center "Joseph Impastato"And external consultant to the prison ofKilling it. She is elected municipal councilor of the Greens and becomes councilor in Palermo with the junta led by Leoluca Orlando. Finally, you have held the role of councilor in the Sicilian regional assembly and vice-president of the Culture Commission
(Info Journalistitalia.it - Facebook page images International Center of Photography)
