Catania, 21 July 2025 — The story of children in Benin considered “ witches” and therefore marginalised, told through participatory documentary — shot by the protagonists themselves in a village in Africa; the life of Ali, from the nomadic Berber tribe, who unlike others does not dream of fleeing to the West but, following in his ancestors’ footsteps, builds a rural house in the desert of Morocco, perfectly self-sufficient and ecologically sustainable; and finally the study of the soundscape in villages across six European countries (Italy, France, Scotland, Germany, Sweden and Finland) and its transformations over the last fifty years: an investigation that narrates and deepens the experimental research launched in 1975 by composer and researcher R. Murray Schafer, pioneer of acoustic ecology and the study of sounds and their interactions in different environments.
These are the two documentaries and a film, directed by four lecturers from the Cinema Course of the Academy of Fine Arts of Catania who, by involving their undergraduate and postgraduate students in the various international production sets, are taking part in the C-Fabit project, funded by the PNRR (through the MUR — Ministry of University and Research), whose objective is to establish a film production hub in Catania under the auspices of the Academy of Fine Arts, an institution chaired by Lina Scalisi and directed by Gianni Latino. The first production, as announced in previous months, will be the pilot episode of a fiction series shot in Catania and inspired by “ Attenti al gorilla” , the cult novel by Sandrone Dazieri, who is also writing the screenplay. Abact will shortly publish tenders to select a production company and to identify a physical location in the city for the Cinema School offices, an operational facility also open to private productions and various film commissions.
Produced by Abact as part of the C-Fabit project, the three works will be directed by Cinema Course lecturers: Alessandro De Filippo, who has been following the story of the orphanage in Kouandé for years — run by Augustinian nuns and home to children known as “ witches” from villages in northern Benin; Maria Arena, who will direct the film “ Creature di sabbia” , a project rooted in research into Berber culture begun in 2019, telling the story of Ali, a nomadic Berber from the Moroccan Sahara; and the joint-directed experimental documentary on soundscape transformations in six European communities, signed by Stefano Zorzanello and Carlo Lo Giudice.
“ They are already in production,” explains Gianpiero Vincenzo, Abact lecturer and scientific coordinator of the C-Fabit PNRR project, “ and will be ready between January and March 2026; shoots are underway in the various countries and, to our great satisfaction, are involving around fifteen Abact students from the Cinema Course who, thanks to the C-Fabit project, are working on a real film production, experiencing different contexts alongside the lecturer-directors.”
THE C-FABIT PROJECT
C-Fabit stands for Cinematic Futures: Bridging Art, Technology and Interdisciplinary Training. Drafted by the Academy of Fine Arts of Catania (lead institution) and conceived in partnership with the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples — the two largest state academies in southern Italy and among the first to establish new cinema courses from 2020– 21 — the C-Fabit project can count on funding of over 5.2 million euros (5,248,478.40 euros).
The project’ s objective is to make the Academy of Catania a hub for film production that is also useful to cinema professionals, providing logistical and strategic support for production companies that increasingly choose Sicily as a preferred location for films, TV series, historical and scientific documentaries, and commercials. From an educational standpoint, students will have access to an extraordinary hands-on laboratory, developing on-set the professional skills connected to the world of cinema.
Project C-FABIT/PNRR | Press Release no. 3_2025
