Cecilia Mangini

Cecilia Mangini has taken a committed, attentive and personal look at the individual and society since the beginning of her work, paying particular attention to the issues of marginalization, immigration and social injustice.

The first woman to shoot documentaries in the post-war period, she wrote the screenplay for several feature films and more than forty short films, mostly made together with her husband Lino Del Fra. Her camera explored Italy from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, often turning its gaze to Southern Italy and Puglia, to search for the rituals of an ancient culture that was disappearing, overwhelmed by the rapid transformations imposed by the economic boom. In 2009, Cecilia received the Medal of the President of the Republic in Florence, "for having transmitted to future generations, through her work as a documentary filmmaker, some of the most beautiful images of Italy in the 1950s and 1960s". Since 2016, she has made documentaries and short films co-directed with Paolo Pisanelli.