Silence is a Gift

Rione Sanità (Naples), Santa Lucia (Cosenza), Torre del Greco. There are places in southern Italy that bear the scars of incurable wounds on the walls and in the flesh of their inhabitants. In these wounds lie the historical memory and the true face of the people. Their names are Alfonso, Elena, Marco, Stefania, to name but a few. Some come from the same neighbourhoods and know each other, others do not. But they have one thing in common: they all met Ciro Battiloro, who followed them into the privacy of their homes, with his camera and his heart. He portrayed their daily lives by taking part in them. Never an intruder, Ciro Battiloro is a friend, a brother, a confidant. He is not so much interested in marginality as in extraordinary vitality. He has seen new lives born, children become teenagers, then parents in their turn. He has also had to say goodbye. Silence is a Gift speaks of love and solitude, life and death, pain and joy, but above all of intimacy and resistance.