The Macaluso Sisters, Italian writer-director Emma Dante’s moving adaptation of her award-winning play of the same name, will open on Friday, August 6 exclusively at New York’s Film Forum and in select theaters nationwide throughout August.
The film premiered in competition at the 2020 Venice International Film Festival where it won the Pasinetti Awards, given by the National Union of Italian Journalists, for Best Film and Best Actress (awarded to the ensemble cast playing the sisters), and has since won the association’s annual prizes for Best Film and Best Director.
The Macaluso Sisters are five orphaned siblings who live in and work from a shabby rooftop apartment in Palermo, Sicily. They make a living by renting out doves, which they paint festive colors, for weddings and funerals. A summer beach outing is planned on a rare day off from work. Near the close of a day full of enchantment, reverie and close encounters with secret lovers, a shocking catastrophe transpires. That single event forever alters the family dynamic, challenging the delicate balance of sisterhood in this accomplished, generation-spanning sophomore feature.
Watch the trailer for The Macaluso Sisters.