Description
Discover the world of Franchina, Cioccolatina, Lulù, Ramon, Brigida, Ornella, Monica the Viking, Fiorella, Rosa, Ambra and Graziella - Sicilian transvestites living/working in Catania's red-light district, San Berillo.
What began casually in 2004 turned into a long-term relationship between Lorezno Castore and the "girls." Every time he was in Catania, he would visit them in the neighborhood and talk to them in the presence of customers. The relationship was friendly, but intermittent, superficial and light, which was normal. I got along with them, but I had no intention of photographing them with a project in mind - I had no intention of photographing them. Castore says.
Delighted by the grandeur and atmosphere of the St. Agatha festival, Castore began to visit Catania more and more often: The pagan spirit of this high-profile show of abandonment of secrecy, combined with the image of a humiliated young girl being tortured (Breast amputation, smoking - ed. note). into the most symbolic physical expression of femininity, caused a strong emotional short-circuit in me, which made me associate the virgin with girls whose nature did not endow them with breasts, but with an excess of genitalia, which, in spite of themselves, caused a contradictory personal identity and too often left them as objects bigoted discrimination" .
Lorenzo Castore continues: This story is not only poetic. It is also a story of suffering for a rejected identity. Often, it is also a story of unhappiness. There is the need to sell oneself as the only option. There is the inability or inability to form stable relationships and a normal life, in the simplest sense of the word. There is only guilt, which fights against the desire for redemption. The context is a land where the Catholic tradition lives in close contact with the criminal tradition, and religion, piety, sin, sexuality and violence are intertwined with a magical force that synthesizes them all. But their choice is also an extreme choice of freedom and the shaping of one's own being, with all the dangers and limitations this brings in a falsely open society. There is also a strong sense of belonging to a community, with all the tensions that living on the margins of society entails. However, "girls" do not have owners, and for many of them sex is or is also a pleasure, an opportunity, a journey and an adventure. In their lives, they have given up, but they have also lived it, and when they have succeeded, they have enjoyed it to the core.
They live to be accepted for who they are, to have the freedom to be themselves with all the contradictions that this brings. My clear sense of identity made me feel
Among them as at home. Somehow their struggles and their obsessions are mine. I am in this book as much as they are. My need to give and receive selfless warmth has been met and reciprocated by their companionship and trust mixed with talkativeness, and I hope this book can give them something in return, a testimony filled with real life.