Sosandra - 2,500 Years of History
Italy | 2023 | 18', Italian (Turkish, English subtitles)
Directed by Lorenzo Scaraggi
Sant'Eufemia is a tiny island protecting the port of Vieste in Apulia, Italy. The islet was the site of a sanctuary dedicated to Venus Sosandra that was later transformed into a place of Christian worship. The walls of the cave sanctuary, rediscovered in 1987, are covered with votive inscriptions in Greek and Latin made by sailors passing through the island that date back to the 3rd century BC. There is also a rare Medieval inscription that documents how the Doge of Venice stopped at Vieste on his way to and from Bari, where his fleet helped free the city from the siege of Saracen pirates in 1002. Today, Sant’Eufemia continues to proffer safety to sailors, thanks to an important lighthouse built on the islet in the late 19th century. Documentary filmmaker Lorenzo Scaraggi’s short doc ‘Sosandra A 2,500-Year History’ offers a glimpse into the island’s history and the activities of archaeologists from the Universities of Bari and Foggia, who are working to reconstruct it.
In 2012, Lorenzo Scaraggi, a travelling journalist-turned-documentarian, bought a 1982 camper van and named it ‘Vostok100k’, after the first manned mission in space. His aim was to turn Vostok 100k into a mobile editorial office. In 2016, Scaraggi travelled 20,000 kilometers along the borders of Europe, recounting the journey for Repubblica TV. In 2017, he travelled the South Cultural Routes in search of social, anthropological and ethnographic stories told on social networks. In 2018, his project ‘Lungomare Italia’, which features dozens of interviews with Italians' about their relationship with the sea, included a radio broadcast on RAI. Scaraggi completed his first feature documentary, ‘Madre Nostra’ (now on Amazon Prime Video), in 2019 , and in 2020 he wrote and directed ‘Ionio, A Dialogue Between Two Seas’, about relationships between Italian and Greek history in Taranto and Corfù. His most recent documentary, ‘Sosandra – A 2500 History’, has been screened at festivals in Europe, Asia and South America.
