Presentation, Conversation and Screening: TWO MOTHERS by Giulia Di Maggio, November 15, 2025, silent green, Berlin

On November 15, at 5 p.m., we will hold a residency event in collaboration with Kultur Ensemble Palermo (Goethe-Institut and Institut français Palermo) and with our current fellow, Giulia Di Maggio, at silent green in Berlin. The Sicily-based filmmaker will screen excerpts of her experimental documentary film project, TWO MOTHERS.

The film grows from Giulia Di Maggio’s loss of her mother, Angela, and an unresolved family story. As a child, Angela was given by her mother to her wealthier sister, Peri, who raised her without formal adoption—a practice once widespread. Now, Giulia follows the two elderly women in Sicily, weaving their story with family archives and Angela’s diaries to open an intergenerational dialogue on motherhood, family bonds and their role in shaping children’s identity.

After screening a selection of excerpts from her works, the filmmaker will be in conversation with anthropologist Julia Pauli (University of Hamburg) and cultural theorist Clio Nicastro (HaFI/Bard College Berlin). Using the case of informal adoption between relatives as a starting point, the discussion will explore kinship and parenthood as dynamic phenomena that evolve over time and are influenced by social class.

Presentation, Conversation and Screening
Saturday November 15, 2025, 5 p.m.
With: Giulia Di Maggio, Julia Pauli, and Clio Nicastro
Location: silent green, Cupola
Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin
Free Admission. Event in English

Giulia Di Maggio studied communication and performing arts at the University of Pisa and then completed a degree in documentary film directing at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Palermo. This led to the film Una Volta Ancora, which was selected for Visions du Réel and won numerous national and international awards. In 2023, she directed Le Fenne, a hybrid short film that won the Special Jury Prize at the Torino Film Festival. In 2025, Di Maggio directed Night Blooms, an experimental short film created in collaboration with composer Giovanni Di Giandomenico. The film was produced by Archive Aamod and had its world premiere at Festival dei Popoli. Di Maggio is currently developing Two Mothers, her first feature-length documentary, which was awarded the Premio Solinas and is being produced by Nefertiti Film.

Julia Pauli is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Hamburg (Germany). Her research concentrates on kinship, migration, and social class. She has conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Mexico (since 1995) and Namibia (since 2003). On kinship and mobility, she has written numerous articles with a focus on Mexico and Southern Africa, including a monograph on the decline of marriage and the rise of class differences in Namibia (2019) and a special issue on migration and social class coedited with Cati Coe and published in ‘Africa Today’ (2020).