Shooting the Mafia

Sicilian photographer Letizia Battaglia began a lifelong battle with the Mafia when she first dared to point her camera at a brutally slain victim. A woman whose passions led her to abandon traditional family life and become a photojournalist in the 1970s -- the first female photographer to be employed by an Italian daily newspaper -- Battaglia found herself on the front lines during one of the bloodiest chapters in Italy's recent history. She fearlessly and artfully captured everyday Sicilian life -- from weddings and funerals to the grisly murders of ordinary citizens -- to tell the narrative of how the community she loved in her native Palermo was forced into silence by the Cosa Nostra. Weaving together Battaglia's striking black-and-white photographs, rare archival footage, classic Italian films, and the now 84-year-old's own memories, Shooting the Mafia paints a portrait of a remarkable woman whose whose bravery and defiance helped expose the Mafia's brutal crimes.