Allegedly living in New York for fifteen years, a man returns to his native hometown in Sicily to visit his mother after receiving a troubling letter from his father. Taking Elio Vittorini’s 1941 novel Conversations in Sicily as its basis, Sicilia! parlays the allegorical setup into four vivid, euphonious dialogues exploring class, memory, and family in the backdrop of the modern Italian countryside. Filmed in Syracuse and Messina, Straub-Huillet’s pristine black-and-white tragicomedy is an unhurried impression of Vittorini’s classic text, finely honed by the filmmakers’ beguiling approach to composition and performance. An NYFF37 selection. A Grasshopper Film release.