One month after the Honorary Citizen Award of Palermo on Lucia Gotti Venturato, we are glad to share the motivations expressed by Mayor Leoluca Orlando.

“To be the founder and president of the association Sole Luna – Un ponte tra culture whose aim is supporting the encounter between different roots, through the promotion of cultural initiatives such as thematic showcases, congresses and capacity buildings for young people.

To have given life to Sole Luna Doc Film Festival in Palermo, an event designed to supporting documentary and film productions that give voice to stories of individuals, personalities and communities related to problematic situations such as marginality and poverty, and in contexts of crisis where fundamental and inalienable human rights are not respected.

To represent, through the productions promoted by the Sun Luna Doc Film Festival, the fragility and intimacy of man, the everydayness of distant and unknown lives that, seemingly poor, are in fact dense with a profound existential meaning, representing a sensitive cultural and human enrichment for the viewer and the evolution of his concept of reality.

To have fostered and given opportunities of growth and diffusion, to independent artistic expressions, which become a tool for the knowledge of other culture, stimulating new ideas of reflection, supporting the encounter of people, ideas and different points of view, transmitting the positive principles of acceptance, trust and hope of dialogue and communion among peoples.

The Mayor, expressing esteem and admiration for the intellectual work aimed at the dialogue between what is different, promoting the knowledge of the other, and spreading a culture of hospitality, peace and respect for human rights, shared and promoted by this City, decides to award Lucia Gotti Venturato with the honorary citizenship of the City of Palermo”.

“Thinking of my citizenship,” said Lucia Gotti Venturato during the ceremony, “I can not forget all those individuals, men and women, children and girls, young people and adults who are still waiting to gain a status that should not be considered a privilege.

Palermo and Sole Luna have given me the opportunity to deal with this topic by in its most intrinsic essence and have taught me the deep meaning of welcome, inclusion, human rights and that they should be respected without apply for them, but they should be a right, precisely, for the very fact that everyone is part of an ecumene, in its sense of home where everyone can live. ”

The mayor then concluded, “This celebration is just a formality, because Lucia was already Palermitana (From Palermo)!”

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