On the occasion of Giornata del Contemporaneo (Contemporary Art Day), the initiative promoted by AMACI – Association of Italian Contemporary Art Museums, now in its twenty-second edition and dedicated this year to the theme Geographies of the Contemporary, MACRO presents the Rome premiere of Archipelago (2017), a film by Camilla Insom and Giulio Squillacciotti, first presented at the 35th Torino Film Festival. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.

Filmed in the Strait of Hormuz, Archipelago opens a rare passage into a place constantly invoked in global politics yet almost never seen from within. Across a group of Iranian islands suspended between Africa, Arabia and Persia, the film moves through a living world where myth, music and invisible forces remain part of daily existence.

Here, centuries of migration, trade and displacement have generated a singular syncretic culture, shaped by the presence of the Bād – spirits, or “winds,” believed to move through bodies, disturb lives and demand negotiation. Their domestication takes place in the Zār ritual, a musical exorcism where pounding drums, chants and collective trance summon the unseen into the social realm. Blending landscapes, gestures, oral narratives and ritual performances, Archipelago reveals an island world rarely represented on screen, where spiritual cosmologies endure within the fabric of contemporary life. At once a sensory journey and a political counter-image, the film offers an unexpected view of Iran from one of the least accessible territories of the region.

The event will take place in the Cinema Room.
Free admission, subject to availability.

Archipelago (Italy, Iran, 2017)
by Camilla Insom and Giulio Squillacciotti 

HD film, 1.85:1, colour, Persian and Arabic, Dolby 5.1, English and Italian subtitles
60’30’’ 

CAMILLA INSOM (Rome, Italy 1983). Anthropologist lives and works in Rome, Italy and Sulaimaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan. She holds a MA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Rome Sapienza and a Phd in Iranian Studies at University of Naples “L'Orientale”. Focus of her research is the modification of the category of sacred in different contexts through the analysis of ritual practices and their changing. In 2013 she researched the funerary practices of the Zoroastrian Parsi community of Bombay. Since 2014 her studies revolve around the Islam of the Kurds in Sulaimaniyah and Sangaw, Iraqi Kurdistan Kasnazaniyya, with particular reference to the Kasnazaniyya Sufi Brotherhood. She is in charge of the Anthropological Studies for the Italian Archaeological Mission in Iraqi Kurdistan (MAIKI) of “Sapienza” University of Rome, member of the Societas Iranologica Europea (SIE) and member of the International Institute of Kurdish Culture. 

GIULIO SQUILLACCIOTTI (Rome, Italy 1982) is an artist and award-winning filmmaker whose work navigates the speculative potential of history through fiction, mystification, and reactivation of collective memory. After studying Medieval Art History and Humanities in Rome and Barcelona, he earned a Master’s degree in Visual Arts from the IUAV School of Architecture in Venice. He was subsequently a residency fellow at the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. His works -ranging from film documentary to fiction and experimental installations- crafted within diverse geographical and cultural contexts, creating immersive environments that reflect on how identities are constructed, performed, and remembered. Squillacciotti's practice focuses on reconstructing specific human, social and political dynamics and rituals as mirrors of broader, universal narratives. Through speculative storytelling, staged reenactments, and deliberate anachronism, he explores the interplay between fact and fiction in shaping collective narratives and shared imaginaries. His work has been presented internationally in film festivals, cultural institutions, and museums. He is currently developing his first feature film, set in Ireland during the aftermath of the 2008 economic crash. The project is an Italian, Irish and Polish co-production) and has received support from MEDIA Creative Europe, Screen Ireland, and the Italian Ministry of Culture’s Film Fund.