Martin Scorsese explores Sicilian roots and heritage during his return to Sicily, where he received a lifetime achievement award at the Taormina Film Festival. The Oscar-winning director, now 82, came back to the island at a time when his connections to family, faith, and personal identity have become increasingly meaningful.
Scorsese’s Deepening Connection to Sicily
This visit marks Scorsese’s latest journey to Sicily, coming after his October 2024 trip when he began filming a documentary inspired by the recent maritime discovery of the Marausa 2 shipwreck — dating back to the third century A.D. During that time, he visited Polizzi Generosa, the small town where his paternal grandparents Teresa and Francesco Scorsese once lived before emigrating to New York as the last century turned.
Scorsese’s reflections on family origins have grown as he tackles projects rooted in religion and history. His creative pursuits recently have included a feature documentary, Aldeas – A New Story, based in part in Sicily and featuring Pope Francis in his final extensive on-camera interview. Meanwhile, Scorsese is also overseeing filming for the second season of Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints, a documentary series for Fox Nation, with recent episodes set in the town of Custonaci in Western Sicily. Custonaci itself is home to a distinguished 15th-century sanctuary, showcasing the intersection of the island’s ancient and religious traditions.
Growing Up Between Cultures
In conversation at Taormina, Scorsese discussed his lifelong bond to Sicily and how those ties are impacting him more deeply now. Raised in Manhattan, Scorsese reflected on how his earliest memories felt as though he was living in a Sicilian village, even as he grew up deep in the city’s core. The customs, language, and daily rhythms of Sicilian heritage were foundational to his upbringing, even as his family became more embedded in American life.
“The thinking, the behaviour, the language. All of this was very, very much part of who I am. Then we became American, kind of. In a way I think that for me that [Sicilian connection] combined with the religious experiences, it has propted a curiosity and a search as to my own identity. As to who I am.”
—Martin Scorsese, Director
Scorsese spoke about how these foundational influences continued to shape him, pondering how different his life might have been had his grandparents not left Sicily. Despite having lived most of his life in New York, he admitted that, as life comes full circle in his eighties, his trips back to Sicily in recent years, whether for film projects or personal discovery, have provided a sense of comfort and introspection.
“There’s a couple of places in the streets of New York where I could belong. But that’s about it. Whether it’s the upper class groups in New York City; I can be with them. New York’s intellectual journalists or writers. But that’s it. Basically, I can’t be with any others. I don’t belong there, but I am there. And so I just try to not be anybody else and just be myself, really. And myself kind of starts here [in Sicily].”
—Martin Scorsese, Director
The sense of not fully belonging yet searching for his roots resonated with Scorsese’s personal narrative, linking his American identity with an emotional yearning for the sense of community he recalls from his childhood. The family ties he describes as
“comfort and love… in those buildings, in the slums”
have stayed with him across decades.
Finding Meaning in Sicily’s Ancient Past
As Scorsese links his modern experiences to the far past, he considers the island’s connection to archeological history and the cultures layered beneath its landscape. The shipwreck of Marausa 2, for instance, fueled his curiosity about the civilizations that once thrived in the region – Etruscans, Sicels, Romans, and Greeks.
“If I want to read something that cleanses the mind, somehow – aside from religious readings and that sort of thing – I’m always back to the Greek tragedies: it’s Aeschylus, Sofocles and Euripides. I’ve read them all in different translations. I just keep going back and re-reading them. I’m exhilarated by them, but also fascinated. I like to immerse myself in that thinking and that world, and that was here. Here and in Greece.”
—Martin Scorsese, Director
His attachment to the ancient past is further reflected in the locations central to his recent visits. When asked about the significance of accepting an award at Taormina’s Ancient Greek theatre — renovated by Romans and with origins rooted in classical antiquity — Scorsese cited its historical resonance. The submerged columns near the site, some traced back to the island of Chios, captivated him, connecting Sicily’s landscape to the worlds of both the ancient Greeks and early Christianity.
“Absolutely. [In the theatre] that was renovated by the Romans. And we saw the columns under the water two days ago. The columns that are there now, some of them have a kind of green-gray colour, they come from a place called Chios [the Greek island]. And some of the columns are still there. But the columns that are under water right now are part of a shipwreck. I believe they’ve estimated that the ship that was carrying them was carrying 70 tons of these things. But again, it’s really the ship, ultimately, from the ancient world to the world of Christianity and hence the films on The Saints.”
—Martin Scorsese, Director
Religion, Fate, and the Stories that Shape Us
Throughout his recent work, religion has been an ever-present theme for Scorsese. The docuseries The Saints explores spiritual stories beyond the miraculous, focusing on everyday people and fate’s enduring influence. Scorsese credited Pope Francis for providing a key insight:
“The Saints are the people you never see.”
—Pope Francis, Pontiff
These reflections have given new depth to Scorsese’s understanding of history’s impact on the present. By tracing his own heritage, religious lineage, and the philosophical roots that run through Sicily’s culture — from ancient Greek tragedies by Euripides and Sofocles, to the sanctuary of Custonaci — he examines the relationship between fate and identity across the centuries.
“And so that’s interesting. But the stories of The Saints are about fate. It always goes [back] to fate. And how that [notion of fate] came out of the ancient world. The change it must have been, those three or four hundred years, or a thousand years, that created the world that we are in now. That always fascinates me. I am going back to the roots of that.”
—Martin Scorsese, Director
Significance of Scorsese’s Return and What Lies Ahead
By returning to Sicily and being recognized at Taormina’s prestigious film festival, Martin Scorsese reaffirms his ties to his family’s place of origin and the questions that have shaped his career. His ongoing projects, including collaborations with Pope Francis and explorations of ancient themes, signal a new creative chapter where heritage and spirituality converge.
As Scorsese continues to reflect on his roots from both sides of the Atlantic — connecting the dynamic world of modern New York with the history-rich towns like Polizzi Generosa and Custonaci — his journey underscores the enduring impact of ancestry, history, and faith, not only on his art but on his evolving sense of self.
