Behind the Scenes: Un pezzo di papà

 In 1982, the then 26-year-old photojournalist Patrick Zachmann took to the streets of Naples, to work on a reportage about the work of the local police in the midst of a Mafia conflict. It was there that he met Andrea Mormile, a young policeman who introduced him to the world of patrols and crime scenes. Mormile became the photographer's friend – and was later himself a murder victim of the Mafia.

The news of Mormile's death reached Zachmann months after he had returned home. Deeply affected by his friend's fate, he published Madonna! in 1984. The photo book was a visual tribute to the police force, offering intense insight into the life of the Napoli police. 

Nearly 40 years later, the photo book brought Zahcmann to the attention of Andrea Mormile's grandson. He contacted the photographer and asked him to visit the family once more. Without much hesitation, Zachman returned to Naples – with a large amount of unpublished photos in his bag. 

The meeting was very emotional; yet it also made it possible to reconstruct a part of the family's story, and to reflect on the impact of Mormile's police work. It also inspired Zachmann to produce a film documentary of his experiences. 

LFI: How did the family react when you visited, and what was your initial feeling? 
Patrick Zachmann: When I went back to visit them for the first time, I was very moved by the way they received me and treated me, more like a family member than a photographer or a cameraman. They invited me for a Christmas dinner, and after the dinner, I brought out prints of Andrea that I brought with me for them. They didn’t know most of them. I could feel the emotions of every members of this traumatized family sitting around the table. Suddenly, Paride, Andrea's oldest son, who also became a policemen, started to cry and couldn’t stop. 

Paride's own children couldn’t understand why he cried and looked at me, asking themselves: why is this man making our father cry?
When their father calmed himself, he explained that he was crying with emotion from looking at all these images of his disappeared father. He said that, when he saw me, he had the feeling of seeing “a pezzo di papa” (a piece of papa).

What was the motivation behind your documentary Un pezzo di papà?
Photography is great, with its silence and its strength; but it has its limits. As I consider myself a story teller, making movies is a logical step I crossed already 25 years ago. I like to come back to photo-stories I did in the past, then add the sound, movement and time that has passed. It allows me to go further into the story and to analyse things at a distance.