Memories of the Landing: A Documentary and Digital Suite
Memories of the Landing is a documentary and multimedia public history project, developed by Prof. Teresa Fiore (Montclair State University) in collaboration with Awen Films, on the Allied landing in Sicily in 1943. The project investigates the legacy of the first decisive push by Allied forces into Axis-occupied Europe – a pivotal but often overlooked turning point in the war. Known as “Operation Husky,” the landing was the largest single amphibious assault of the war up to that moment in history, but has been largely overshadowed in public memory by D-Day. As a result, the topic remains in part an unexplored territory, and its remembrance in Sicily bears a complex imprint, often suspended between narratives of invasion and liberation.
The project comprises a documentary revolving around three interconnected thematic clusters:
1. Monuments and Memory: Exploring beaches, bunkers, and commemorative markers, this narrative thread documents how the Landing is re-evoked – or silenced – in Sicily’s public spaces and communal practices.
2. Food: How wartime scarcity and exchange shaped Sicilian foodways before, during, and after Allied occupation. From K-rations to haute cuisine, this thematic thread explores the “taste of the landing,” revealing how food functioned as both sustenance and symbol. This section leverages the collection of video-interviews completed by Professor Fiore as part of a previous project that constitutes the launching pad of "Food, Migration and the American Myth in Sicily at the Time of the WWII Allied Landing".
3. Literature: Starting with the writings of Leonardo Sciascia and extending to broader literary representations, this theme traces how the Landing has been refracted through the written word as a site of both personal memory and collective narration.
The project will be complemented by a suite of multimedia materials: archival documents and images, recorded interviews, essays, bibliographies, and other resources. An interactive web platform will enable immersive, dynamic navigation across this corpus, designed for classrooms, museums, public programs, and broad public engagement.
Team
Teresa Fiore, co-director, is a scholar shuttling between Italy and the United States: she intertwines academic research, creative projects, and cultural commitments within a transnational vision. A professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey, she has also taught at Harvard, Yale and NYU. Her studies on migration from/to Italy and the post/colonial experience have received Fulbright, Rockefeller and NEH funding. Author of the book Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies (Fordham 2017/Mondadori, 2021), she has published in multiple languages in magazines, catalogs and edited volumes about Italian migrations and colonialism.
She teaches a popular class titled “Italian Americans in Film” and has published papers on films and directors focusing on past and current forms of Italian mobility, including from and to Sicily. On campus she organizes regular film screenings and debates, as part of a multi-disciplinary cultural programming. In 2019 she was awarded the title of Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy for her work in cultural diplomacy between Italy and the United States. In 2025, she coordinated four multi-media projects for Agrigento 2025 Italian Capital of Culture as part of an initiative called SPONDE.
Awen Films (Valerio Ciriaci, co-director; Mila Tenaglia, executive producer; Isaak Liptzin, cinematographer)
Awen Films is a film production company based in New York specializing in the creation of documentaries and visual projects that explore themes of social and cultural history, with particular attention to the interconnections between Italy and the United States. Their feature films – If Only I Were That Warrior (2015), Mister Wonderland (2019) and Stonebreakers (2022) – have received awards including the Golden Globe, the audience award at the Festival dei Popoli and the award for best documentary at the History Film Festival.
Awen Films’ works have been presented at numerous festivals, academic institutions and cultural spaces, and broadcast on international television networks. In collaboration with the Primo Levi Center, Awen Films created the video installationsThe Rome Lab (2017) and Los Corassones Avlan (2019). Their latest work (Elvira Notari: Beyond the Silence) was in competition at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, is a finalist for the 2026 Nastri d’argento Awards, and in the short list of the 2026 David di Donatello Awards.
The project is supported by Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies funding.
Special thanks to those associations, foundations, commercial activities, and individuals that have provided contacts and information (Associazione MEMENTO in Licata, Siracusa Tour Experiences, Emma Schembari), partial funding (Fondazione Agrigento Capitale 2025), equipment (Gapmovie), access to historical sites (Ente Parco Valle dei Templi), schools (Istituto Comprensivo Statale “Rita Borsellino” in Palermo), and museums (Museo della fotografia Robert Capa di Troina) and logistical support (Municipality of Licata and Municipality of Termini Imerese) over the years.
Project Status
- Survey of pre-existing material (collection of video-interviews) – Fall 2024
- First round of interviews with scholars – Fall 2024 and Spring 2025
- Archival research, interviews and production of a short documentary for SBARCO, an event included in Agrigento Capitale della Cultura – Summer 2025
Survey of landscapes and partners (areas of licata, agrigento and siracusa) – summer/fall 2025
First filming session (catania, siracusa, noto, licata, agrigento) including interviews with a historian of the landing, a direct witness, a performing art director, a tour guide, the members of wwii-focused cultural associations, a tourism entrepreneur, and the director and an employee of the landing museum in catania – january 2026
Second filming session (ognina, cassibile, siracusa, palermo, termini imerese, troina) including interviews with a university professor, an independent scholar, the descendant of an aristocratic family that supported the allies, two collectors of military artifacts and images, a scuba diving expert on sunken aircrafts, a former teacher organizing the school registry archives, two direct witnesses of the wwii bombings in palermo, and a playwright focused on robert capa’s photography) – may 2026.
For more information: fiorete@montclair.edu or info@awenfilms.net