Film · 2009

Baarìa

Tornatore's Bagheria, rebuilt twenty kilometres from Tunis.

Act one

Bagheria can no longer
play itself.

"It would have been impossible to shoot in the present-day town in Italy, especially for the scenes set in the Twenties and Thirties."

— Giuseppe Tornatore
interview at Tekiano, June 26, 2010

When Tornatore decides to tell seventy years of Sicilian history through three generations of his family, he needs a Bagheria that no longer exists. Modern urbanisation has wiped away the Thirties, the Fifties, the Seventies. The solution comes from Tarak Ben Ammar and his Carthago Studios: a derelict former factory at Ben Arous, on the outskirts of Tunis. Six hectares, about three times the Gangs of New York set at Cinecittà. Production designer: Maurizio Sabatini.

A Sicilian Baroque church rebuilt in Tunis, mustard-yellow, still under construction with a service crane — The church, still under construction

Sicilian Baroque monumental gateway in mustard yellow, rebuilt to scale 1:1 with a double order of columns and friezes — The gateway closing the main street

Sicilian Liberty-style palazzo in salmon pink, green shutters, wrought-iron railings: the bourgeois Bagheria of the twentieth century — A townhouse of Liberty Bagheria

Act two

Tornatore and Ivano,
old acquaintances.

When Tornatore calls Creation Art for Baarìa, Ivano Ferrario has already known him for almost a decade. Nine years earlier, on the set of Malèna, Tornatore had asked how the camera could be wheeled across a Baroque square in Ortigia without ruining its historic paving. Ivano came up with the latex carpet: a cast of a period pavement, poured in latex with glass wool, rolled out over the real cobblestones. Ortigia covered overnight. "Let's patent it," the director told him. From that moment on, the friendship.

For Baarìa, the challenge changes scale: not a carpet, but an entire town across three eras. The same elevations have to move from the Thirties to the Seventies by swapping signs, shopfronts, shutters, friezes. The key material is fibreglass: light, interchangeable, able to withstand the Tunisian sun. We work inside Maurizio Sabatini's plan, supplying the modular facade pieces.

Facades of a working-class palazzo in faux Sicilian stone, scaffolding still active after the grey rendering — The working-class palazzi, under construction

Completed building on the set, with Sicilian architectural details and full painted finishes — Painted finishes and final dressing in place

Sculptural detail of the facade: cornices, mouldings, yellow stuccos — typical of Palermitan Baroque — The plumb-line sculptural details

Behind the scenes

Six hectares, three eras,
one single town.

Baarìa is an Italian blockbuster: a budget around thirty million euros, about fifteen of which were spent on scenography alone. Six hectares of set, nine months of preparation, twenty-five weeks of shooting, thirty-five thousand extras in costume. Tornatore wants three distinct eras — the Thirties of Sicilian poverty, the Fifties of political hope, the Seventies of modernist illusion — on the same row of buildings. Fibreglass is the technical answer.

View of the Baarìa set under construction in Tunis: raw facades, active scaffolding, palms of the Ben Arous suburbs in the background — The Bagheria construction site, Ben Arous (Tunis). The palms give away the latitude.

The monumental scale

Six hectares of set, built on the grounds of Tarak Ben Ammar's Carthago Studios. Three times the surface area of the Gangs of New York set built at Cinecittà seven years earlier by Dante Ferretti for Scorsese. One hundred and twenty-two additional exterior locations in Sicily, in Tunisia, on Pantelleria. Three hundred thousand metres of film stock shot.

Three eras, same walls

Bagheria must appear as it was in the Thirties, then the Fifties, then the Seventies. The same facades, the same balconies, the same windows — but different signs, different shopfronts, different shutters, different cornices. Fibreglass makes it possible to build dozens of interchangeable elevations on the same urban grid, swapped out between one week of shooting and the next.

The yellow of Palermo

The palette is the Sicilian signature: mustard yellow, ochre, salmon pink, burnt sienna. The light of Enrico Lucidi — director of photography — turns it to gold when the Tunisian sun strikes the elevations. The painted finishes of our workshop are layered with glazing, sponging, ragging, one coat at a time, over every square metre of the six hectares.

6 ha of set · 3 times the Gangs of New York at Cinecittà

25 weeks of shooting · 9 months of pre-production

35,000 extras in costume in the mass scenes

An alley on the set still empty, rendered facades — **An alley.** The working-class houses of poor Bagheria, awaiting their final colour and street furniture.

View of Bagheria's main street under construction — **The main street.** The town's principal axis, forced perspective leading to the monumental gateway.

Nineteenth-century facades pressed against one another — **The modular elevations.** The fibreglass facades that will change with the film's three eras.

A street of Bagheria with the set completed, before the extras: painted signs, shopfronts, shutters, urban details of the Thirties — A street of Bagheria, the set complete. Just after this, the invasion of the thirty-five thousand extras.

A side street in Bagheria: mustard and pink stone houses, balconies, a white horse-drawn carriage, extras in 1930s costume. — A side street of Bagheria

Political procession with red flags of the Italian Communist Party — men in flat caps in the foreground, a mass scene shot on the Tunisian set. — The Communist Party procession

The square of Bagheria completed, deserted before filming: nineteenth-century facades with balustrades, perspective onto the monumental gateway at the far end of the street. — The square, before the extras

Mine will not be a nostalgia trip, even though it is my
most personal film.

Giuseppe Tornatore Il Giornale · 10 May 2008

Tech sheet

Three times Gangs of New York

Six hectares of set, built on the grounds of Tarak Ben Ammar's Carthago Studios in Ben Arous, on the southern outskirts of Tunis. To give a sense of scale: it is about three times the surface of the ancient Rome set built at Cinecittà in 2001 by Dante Ferretti for Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York. The derelict factory was completely converted into a film studio.

Three David di Donatello wins, fourteen nominations

Baarìa received fourteen David di Donatello nominations in 2010, of which three were won — Best Composer (Ennio Morricone, his eighth David), David Giovani for Tornatore, Best Supporting Actor ensemble. In the same year: Nastro d'Argento Film of the Year, Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was also Italy's entry for the 2010 Academy Awards.

Thirty-five thousand extras

The mass scenes of Baarìa involved thirty-five thousand extras in costume — the official production figure, never substantially matched since by Italian cinema. Two hundred permanent crew, over one hundred actors, twenty-five weeks of principal photography. The film opened the 66th Venice Film Festival on 2 September 2009 — the first Italian opening film in twenty years.

Fifteen million on scenography

On an overall budget of around thirty million euros, scenography alone cost fifteen million — exactly half the film. Production designer: Maurizio Sabatini. Fibreglass made it possible to build dozens of interchangeable modular elevations: the same building can appear as the Thirties, then the Fifties, then the Seventies, swapping only the facades. A key material for the industrial scale of the work.

All production data

Type: Feature film
Directed and written by: Giuseppe Tornatore
Production designer: Maurizio Sabatini
Director of photography: Enrico Lucidi
Music: Ennio Morricone (David di Donatello 2010, his eighth)
Main cast: Francesco Scianna · Margareth Madè · Lina Sastri · Luigi Lo Cascio · Raoul Bova
Production: Medusa Film · Quinta Communications (Tarak Ben Ammar) · Mediaset Premium
Shooting: 9 months pre-production · 25 weeks shooting · 300,000 metres of film stock
Premiere: 2 September 2009, 66th Venice Film Festival (opening film)
Release: 25 September 2009 (Italy)
Main location: Carthago Studios, Ben Arous — Tunis · 6 hectares · converted former factory
Additional locations: Bagheria · Palermo · Pantelleria · Cefalù · Castelbuono · 122 locations in total
Our role: Scenographic elements in plaster and fibreglass: interchangeable modular facades for the three eras, cornices, friezes, Sicilian Baroque architectural details, painted patina. Set work carried out under the direction of Maurizio Sabatini.
Awards: 14 David nominations 2010 (3 won: Morricone, David Giovani, ensemble cast) · Nastro d'Argento Film of the Year · Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film
Second life: Set dismantled after filming · some plaster and fibreglass sculptures returned to our workshops as an archive of Sicilian Baroque scenographic school

Second life

The Sicily rebuilt,
then dismantled.

The set of Baarìa was one of the largest ever built for an Italian film — six hectares of Sicilian town rebuilt at Ben Arous, in Tunisia, at Tarak Ben Ammar's Carthago Studios. Three times the surface of the ancient Rome set for Gangs of New York at Cinecittà. Fifteen million euros spent on scenography alone, 35,000 extras in costume across the 25 weeks of shooting.

After the 2008-2009 shoot the set was dismantled. The most carefully crafted plaster and fibreglass sculptures — cornices, friezes, Sicilian Baroque architectural details — returned to our workshops as a scenographic-school archive. The grammar of Sicilian Baroque entered our repertoire permanently for the period-film commissions that followed.

Baarìa remains in our portfolio as one of the most ambitious Italian cinematic blockbusters of all time. Fourteen David di Donatello nominations in 2010 (three won, including Morricone for the score), Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, Nastro d'Argento Film of the Year. Tornatore's Sicily, built by our hands.