Tag Archives: Italian

Ralph Rotella: The Sole of Syracuse

Our documentary short Ralph Rotella: The Sole of Syracuse has completed its festival run and is now available for viewing on YouTube.

Logline: Ralph Rotella plies the craft of shoe repair while offering kindness and a sense of community to his customers and the residents of Syracuse, New York.

Since emigrating to the U.S. from Italy in the 1970s, Rotella has owned Discount Shoe Repair in downtown Syracuse. Each day he opens the store, fixes shoes, works with his hands using antiquated equipment, and converses with customers. In his daily interactions with people, Rotella reveals himself to be a witty, beatific figure who draws people to himself, building a sense of community with his shoe repair shop as a hive of activity. The film examines the value of work and what constitutes happiness, while also honoring an unsung hero in the Central New York community.

Photo Credit: Shane Johnson

Credits, Awards and Festivals:

Directed by Francis DiClemente and Shane Johnson
Produced by Francis DiClemente
Cinematography and Editing by Shane Johnson

Ralph’s work bench. Photo Credit: Shane Johnson.

Awards:

Winner: Best Director, Short Films
New York Documentary Film Awards (2024)

Gold Remi Award in Film & Video Productions, sub-category Community
57th WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival (2024)

Film Festivals:

New York Documentary Film Awards
NewFilmmakers NY, Spring 2024 Screening Series
57th WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival
Culver City Film Festival
Syracuse International Film Festival

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Shoe Guy Available Online

My indie documentary short Ralph Rotella: The Sole of Syracuse, co-directed by my Syracuse University colleague Shane Johnson, has been selected as part of NewFilmmakers NY’s Spring 2024 Screening Series. Click on this link to watch the full film (until May 31).

Since emigrating to the U.S. from Italy in the 1970s, Ralph Rotella has owned Discount Shoe Repair in downtown Syracuse. Each day he opens the store, fixes shoes, works with his hands using antiquated equipment, and converses with customers.

Photo Credit: Shane Johnson

In his daily interactions with people, Rotella reveals himself to be a witty, beatific, George Bailey-type figure who draws people to himself, building a sense of community with his shoe repair shop as a hive of activity. The film examines the value of work and what constitutes happiness, while also honoring an unsung hero in the Central New York community.

Ralph’s work bench. Photo Credit: Shane Johnson.

 

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Ralph Rotella: The Sole of Syracuse

I’m happy to announce that my indie documentary short Ralph Rotella: The Sole of Syracuse, co-directed by my talented Syracuse University colleague Shane Johnson, will premiere at the Redhouse on Friday afternoon as an official entry of the Syracuse International Film Festival.

As many people in Central New York already know, Ralph is an amazing character with a generous heart, and it was a blast learning more about him.

After walking past his shop almost every day for the past few years, I felt compelled to go inside and talk to him. Inspired by Studs Terkel’s book Working, I wanted to do a mini doc to answer two questions: 1) Do people still get their shoes repaired in the 21st century 2) Can this man actually earn a living through shoe repair alone (taking into account the high cost of a downtown office building lease)? Or does he need an alternate income to survive?

Ralph Rotella hammering a heel. Photo Credit: Shane Johnson.

Ralph was a tough interview, and it was a challenge stringing together a narrative based on his terse sound bites, quips, and comedic digressions. And the film I thought I was making turned into something slightly different. But that’s the beauty of documentary filmmaking; if you take the time to pay attention to your subject, the story will reveal itself to you.

Photo Credit: Shane Johnson.

And through Shane’s fine cinematography—as we observed a “day in the life” of the shop, cinema verité style—we captured authentic personal moments that illustrate the bond Ralph shares with his customers on a daily basis.

This is Ralph’s work bench. It’s my favorite frame from the film. Photo Credit: Shane Johnson.

And here’s a little teaser we prepared in anticipation of the premiere.

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Happy Thanksgiving: Italian Style

I wanted to share a recent Thanksgiving tradition in our family. During Thanksgiving week, my wife, Pamela, and I make Italian pizzelles—both anisette and chocolate flavored—according to the recipe of my late mother, Carmella DeCosty Ruane. This simple Italian cookie pairs well with a cup of coffee; it’s also one of the few things I can make from scratch, along with pasta fagioli (fazool), lentil soup with ditalini pasta (box version) and marinara sauce (pronounced madinad in Rome, New York). The pizzelle tradition is even more meaningful as this time of year always reminds me of my mother, since she passed away seven years ago on Nov. 22, 2011.

You will need a pizzelle maker in order to cook up a batch of your own.  Here’s a snapshot of our final product:

Chocolate and anisette flavored pizzelles.

And here are the instructions from Carmella’s original recipe, with some slight modification by Pamela and me:

Italian Pizzelles

3 Eggs
1 Tsp. Anise Flavoring
1 Tbsp. Vanilla Flavoring
2 Tsp. Baking Powder
2 Cups Flour
½ Cup of Butter or Margarine, melted
1 Cup Sugar

Beat eggs and sugar. Add cooled melted butter or margarine, and vanilla and anise. Sift flour and baking powder and add to egg mixture. Batter will be stiff enough to be dropped by teaspoon. Makes 30 Pizzelles.

Before the first pizzelles of the day only, use a pastry brush to carefully coat the entire surface of the both halves of the pizzelle maker with vegetable oil or melted shortening. Spray shortenings work very well for this purpose. Do this only at the start of each day that you bake pizzelles. Wipe excess shortening off the grids. The first pizzelles may not come out well. These directions are for my pizzelle maker. Your pizzelle maker may not require you to do this.

Pick up about one heaping teaspoon of batter and place in the center of each grid pattern. With some experimenting, you will learn that placing the batter slightly behind the center (that is, away from you) can produce full-size pizzelles. You may also prefer to use half as much batter to produce smaller pizzelles with a snowflake border. Baking will take approximately 30 seconds depending on your preference for browning, or the consistency of your batter. Remove pizzelles with spatula and place on a flat tin. Once pizzelles are completely cool, put in a plastic container or a plastic bag so the pizzelles stay crisp.

Chocolate Pizzelles

Use 1 ¾ cups of flour (not 2 cups), add 3 heaping tablespoons cocoa and add 3 tablespoons sugar to the basic pizzelle recipe. If desired, you can substitute chocolate flavoring instead of the vanilla. Do not add anise flavoring.

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My Mother’s Tupperware

My late mother’s handwriting. Black Sharpie marks on masking tape stuck to an old Tupperware container.

She wrote this out on August 30, 2011, less than three months before she died from lung cancer. I claimed the Tupperware from my stepfather’s house after her passing and never had the heart or the desire to peel off the tape.

This summer I cooked my mother’s zucchini and green bean stew with onions, Italian seasonings and crushed tomatoes. I don’t have a recipe of hers to follow, but I winged it and it came out edible. For the full effect you need to dunk fresh Italian bread in the juice.

And it was fitting to dump the leftovers in my mother’s Tupperware and stick the container in my freezer. Marking this date, I thought I would defrost the Tupperware today to honor my mother’s memory and enjoy the last zucchini stew of summer.

Yet when I pulled out the container from the freezer this morning, I saw another one, filled with the same stew I made, with my mother’s handwriting on masking tape (also dated 8/30/11), tucked in the back of the freezer. I think I’ll save that one for a frigid night in the middle of winter.

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Sunday Dinner essay published

I’ve been away for a long time, as I’ve been preoccupied with work-related video projects. But I wanted to mention that one of my essays, Sunday Dinner, has been published in the online magazine The Cook’s Cook. In the story I reflect on spending Sunday afternoons at my maternal grandmother’s house in Rome, New York.

Here’s a photo of my grandmother, Amelia.

My late grandmother, Amelia DiClemente.

And you can read the essay here.

 

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