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European surprises (#11 in single-image teaser series: do you recognise this woman?)

 

 

I am almost entirely sure that  – for everyone who looks at today’s featured image – your answer to the question posed in this post’s headline would be a resounding “no”.

I am equally sure that almost all of you have seen the face of this particular Sicilian villager, albeit as it was in 1971… a little more than 52 years before I photographed her, in the very same village, on the morning of 1 October, 2023.

You are looking at someone who was an “extra” in an “iconic” film; she was the only one of the local “extras” to have a speaking part in it, as “the mother of the beautiful young bride”.

The film was released the following year, and was the world’s most-watched film in 1972.

For some years thereafter it held the title as “highest-grossing movie, ever”; it is still viewed by literally millions of people in any calendar year.

You are looking at Vicenza, who is bright, feisty, vividly alive.

i do not know her age, but given the nature of her role as “Apollonia’s mother” in The Godfather, Vicenza surely must have experienced rather more than 85 Easters.

Savoca – her hilltop village – played a crucial role in The Godfather, and is a remarkable place in its own right…as shall be further explored/revealed in a future, multi-image post.

Published in Americas and Eurasia and Africa nature and travel photographs