RIGHTS TO RITUAL
A multi-disciplinary project about contemporary tarantism

As commodification overtakes the memory of tarantismo - the spider bite possession ritual linked to the cult of Saint Paul in Galatina, Italy - contemporary artists, dancers, musicians & academics are redirecting how this phenomenon is remembered, retold, and practiced.

Rights to Ritual is a multi-year project about tarantismo in the Salento region of Italy. The film introduces several contemporary artists whose work is deeply rooted in explorations of spirituality connected to body practices. This project takes a pluralistic approach to documentary, positioning several critical discourses and profoundly personal experiences in order to articulate a collective need among these practitioners to denounce social marginalization, vulnerability, and suffering through use of the body and through ritual.

The project is driven by an interest to capture live performance, discuss social histories, and gather personal narratives with interviews that can function as oral and cultural history, as well as offer social critique. These would serve to contribute these emerging critical voices to the ongoing discourse surrounding the culture of tarantismo in Southern Italy, the Mediterranean, and internationally.

Directed by Alexis Iammarino and Scott Sell