Draft:Giovanni Princigalli

Giovanni (also known as Gianni) Princigalli is an Italian-Canadien filmmaker, historian and activist. He was born in Bari on August 24.

His aunt Anna Maria Princigalli. was one of the few women to hold the rank of officer in a partisan brigade and a pedagogist.

The other aunt Ada Princigalli was a journalist. His father Giacomo was a political leader, as well as an exponent of the pacifist and cooperative movements.

Despite his father's work, his family lived for a long time in public housing and later in a state building for public employees. His father Giacomo, as a leader of the PSI first, and then of the PSIUP, received a salary equivalent to that of a skilled worker. When he was elected to the council of the Puglia region, he donated half of his salary to the party. The economic situation remained precarious for many years. .

In Italy Giovanni Princigalli was a member of the La Pantera student movement (for which he was a delegate to the national assembly in Florence). He was a leader of the ARCI (Italian Cultural and Recreative Association) and a student representative elected on a left-wing list to the board of directors of the University of Bari and the degree council of Political Science.

His first film, is the documentary Japigia Gagi - Roma stories, shot while living for a year in a Romanian Roma shack camp on the outskirts of Bari. The film's supervisor and financier, was sociologist and parliamentarianFranco Cassano, who was the director of his political science thesis. Later he had as film masters : Umberto Contarello, Giuseppe Piccioni, Annie Comolli, Carlo Alberto Pinelli.

His films have been mentioned in various textbooks on social sciences and documentary filmmaking. They have been screened at festivals such as: RIDM, Cinéma d'Ales, African Diaspora International Film Festival of New York, Festival du film pan africain de Cannes, etc., and included in the programming of various cultural institutions and cinematheques around the world. Among his films that have received a good reception of critical and festivals are the documentaries: Japigia Gagi, J'ai fait mon propre courage and Les fleurs à la fenêtre. In 2024, he completed his first feature film, the documentary La chanson d'Aida, dedicated to Franco Cassano. .  It was world premiered at the Bari International Film festival in March 2024, anticipated by his short documentary Porajmos, In memory of Roma and Sinti Holocaust, edited with images, footage and music from the U.S. Holocaust Museum. These two last works were presented in the Ethnocineca - International Documentary Film Festival Vienna on the 60th anniversary of the Roma and Sinti uprising in Auchwitz on May 16, 1944.

In Montreal, he is a frequent collaborator of director Paul Tana, of longtime screenwriter Bruno Ramirez and of anthropologist Bob White.

As a history enthusiast, he has collaborated with institutions such as the Montreal History Museum and has published articles on the Roma holocaust, socialism , his partisan aunt and Italian immigrants in Montreal

In 2020, an article he wrote in the French-Canadian newspaper Le Devoir sparked a debate and controversy around the presence of a fresco depicting Mussolini in Notre Dame de La Defense church à Montreal.

He is currently a member of the Red Unial network, which deals with cinema for children and adolescents in Latin America, based in Havana. Lastly, he is a member of the Quebec Solidaire party and the Canadian Social Democratic Party, NDP.

Filmography
2024, Porajmos, In memory of Roma and Sinti Holocaust (documentary, 3 min)

2024, The Song of Aida (documentary,  96 min)

2019,  Story of Vasilka (documentary, 37 min)

2019 Three Comrades of Montreal (documentary, 50 min) co-directed with Bruno Ramirez

2018 The fiancée (fiction, 12 min)

2015 Ligia (documentary, 20 min)

2014 The Red Apple (docu-fiction, 20 min)

2010 Les fleurs à la fenêtre (documentary, 50 min)

2008 I Got Up My Courage (documentary, 50 min)

2003 Japigia Gagi - Roma stories (documentary, 59 min)

Books that mention his films
The Cambridge History of Global Migrations: Volume 2,  Cambridge University Press, Marcelo J. Borges, ? Madeline Y, Cambridge University Press, 2023

Seeing Cities Change: Local Culture and Class, Jerome Crase, Taylor & Francis edition, 2016

Italy's Margins Social Exclusion and Nation Formation Since 1861, David Forgacs, Cambridge University Press, 2014

Quaderni Gitani DVD+libretto triologia di Giovanni Princigalli, Franco Cassano, Roberto Silvestri, Silvestra Mariniello, Onofrio Introna, Santino Spinelli, Luca Caminati, Ivan Scarcelli, Dafina Savic, Viva Paci, Mauro Sassi. Héros Fragiles, Teca del Mediterraneo, 2014 Bari.

Risorgimento ed emigrazione, Emilio Franzina, Matteo Sanfilippo, Edizioni Sette Città, 2014

Storia del documentario Italiano, Marco Bertozzi, Marsilio Editori, 2008

Il film etnografico in Italia, Francesco Marano, Edizioni di pagina, 2006

Papers written by Giovanni Princigalli
Il socialista che non trovò mai il socialismo, La bella politica di una generazione che non c'è più, Futura umanità, 17 aprile 2024

En mémoire d'Allende, à 50 ans du coup d'état du 11 septembre 1973 Turn Left - Virez à gauche, numéro automne 2023

Salvador Allende, le médecin qui devint Président, Presse-toi à gauche, 12 septembre 2023

Roses, poings et drapeaux rouges, brève histoire des symboles du socialisme, Caucus socialiste du NPD, 15 février 2023

Pour un NPD qui assume pleinement sa vocation sociale-démocrate, Le Devoir,  22 novembre 2022

Conversation sur l'engagement politique des Italo-Montréalais, entretien avec Bruno Ramirez, Encyclopédie du MEM, 16 novembre 2020

Les Italo-Montréalais dans leurs mots, Encyclopédie du MEM, 17 aout 2020

Mussolini à Montréal, Le Devoir, 3 juillet 2020

La partigiana dei bambini, la storia dimenticata di Anna Maria Princigalli, Nuova Resistenza Unita, Museo casa della Resistenza, numero aprile maggio Verbania.

Porajmos, l'olocausto dei Rom, Rivista di scienze sociali, n. 15, 2015

Le cose belle d'un documentariste italien, Agostino Ferrente. Revue séquences cinéma, Québéc.

Il racconto di una realtà credibile, riflessioni su documentario e cinema antropologico de Giovanni Princigalli, revue de sciences sociales Lares, vol. 68.

Selected bibliography
Nicola Signorile, Aida, una donna in un campo rom, Corriere del mezzogiorno, Bari, 20 marzo, 2024.

Emiliano Moccia, Aida, che lotta per una vita lontana dal campo rom, Vita.it, 8 Marzo 2024

Clayton Ma, History of Little Italy, The Canadian Enciclopedia, February 19, 2021

Ezra Black, A New Petition Is Asking For Plaques To Explain A Fresco Of Mussolini In A Montreal Church, MTL Blog, Oct 06, 2020.

Emily Campbell, Petition calls for contextualization of Mussolini painting at Italian church in Montreal, CTV News Montreal Videojournalist, Thursday, October 1, 2020

Danielle Schoon, Center for Folklore Studies Ethnographic Film Series: Roma Stories, Humanities Institute, The Ohio State University, February 6, 2019

Rebecca Schiff, The Roma and Documentary Film: Considerations for Collection Development, CUNY Academic Works, City University of New York (CUNY), College of Staten Island, 2019.

Roberto Silvestri, Rivoluzionariamente scorretti. La storia del rapporto cinema e Rom, Sentieri Selvaggi 21 Giugno 2018

Mauro Sassi, Incontro con Agostino Ferrente e Giovanni Princigalli, Rivista Luci e Ombre - Numero 3- Anno II- luglio-ottobre 2014.

Giuseppe Ferlito, Giovanni Princigalli, Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies, Volume 2, Issue 1, mars 2014, p. 151 - 153

Bruno Vincens, Les champs Roms dans l'oeil de la camera, l'Humanité, 10 juillet Paris.

Mathieu Li-Goyette, Le cinéma ethnographique de Giovanni Princigalli, Panorama Cinéma, 8 juin 2011, Montréal

Elie Castel, Les fleurs à la fenêtre, La revue Séquences cinéma, Montréal, septembre-octobre 2010, Montréal.

Cristina Piccino, Italiani e migranti, in Canada da sposi. Un film di Princigalli, Il Manifesto, 21/10/2010

2005, Ernarosa Tominich, Japigia Gagi: Roma Stories, Educational Media Reviews Online (EMRO) 05/27/05

2003, Antonella Gaeta, Un anno con i rom di Japigia 'Ho filmato la loro felicità, La Repubblica Bari, 10 giugno 2003 -  pagina 13

External Link
Giovanni Princigalli at IMDb

at Cinema Italiano

at Reals Québec

at The Canadian Encyclopedia

at Enciclopedia delle donne

at Éncyclopédie du MEM