Italian photographer and documentarian Cecilia Mangini dies at 93

Cecilia Mangini, a pioneering Italian photographer and documentary filmmaker known for her anthropological focus on marginalized communities, died in late January 2021. Born in Bari in 1927, Mangini used photography and film to document complex themes such as death, mourning, and ritual lamentation, particularly in southern Italy. Her work was deeply influenced by ethnologist Ernesto De Martino, leading to the 1960 film 'Stendalì. Suonano Ancora' with commentary by Pier Paolo Pasolini, which captured the ancestral grief of peasant women. In 2017, her extensive archive of contact sheets, prints, notes, and documentaries was exhibited at the Istituto Centrale per la Demoetnoantropologia in Rome. Notable among her works are photographs from 1958 of an elderly woman in Mola di Bari praying at a domestic altar, reflecting what Oscar Lewis termed 'the culture of poverty.' Mangini's unique female perspective documented a vanishing world of magic and ritual, leaving a lasting legacy for anthropological study. Her death marks the loss of a magnetic, cultured, and combative artist from the south.