Hi there, reader. Today's featured photographer is the blithe and hunky Lele Saveri, who was once the Photo Editor for VICE's Italian edition, which I happen to edit. Now he's just a friend of ours and one of the few universally cool dudes we've ever had the pleasure of knowing. Lele works for a variety of magazines and shoots a bit of everything. He's also currently working on his first book, which is all about fear. Cool topic for a photo book if you ask this cretin here. For this year's Photo Ish, Lele gave us a strange portfolio with images of weird southern Italian peasants who dress up like bizzaro demonic Groucho Marxes for an anti-semitic Catholic festival in the Sicilian mountain village of San Fratello.
VICE: Hey, Lello. How you doin', buddy?
Lele Saveri: I'm alright. I'm in LA.What's up over there?
I'm finishing a video with Giulia Venturini and No Age. I think I'll chill out in San Francisco for a couple of days after that.Wait, you're making a video for No Age?
No, no. They're making music for a video that I'm making with Giulia. They're going to write something on spec.That's pretty awesome, dude. Dean rules.
Yeah. Let's hope it turns out OK.So you're one of those photographers who's moving on to video, right?
I guess so. I've been thinking about doing this for quite some time. But this is a video I'm making to promote the book, which will be out in September. The book has a weird title—Incubi et succubi—so I wanted to express the concept of the demon, of the incubus and the succubus, creatures who come in the night and steal your soul while you're asleep by having sex with you. The video is a physical representation of that, in the sense that it will feature a person who falls asleep and dreams of a succubus that slowly steals his soul. I wanted to tell that story in relation to the book, but it also kind of became its own thing.The succubus, essentially, is the female version of the incubus, right?
Exactly. The succubus… well, in Latin I think it means something like "to lay down," like, "to succumb." Basically, she stays beneath you while the incubus climbs on top of you. So the succubus kind of crawls under you while you sleep and is represented as a kind of crawling demon in female form. These demons rape you at night. They rape you without you realizing it, because they cloak it with the dream. This is what people used to say in medieval times. It was something like a medieval justification for wet dreams.The word "nightmare" in Italian is "incubo," so I guess that's the same root.
Yep.
Did the incubus rape dudes or girls?
I think both, but I believe it was more common with women. I think it mainly had to do with explaining wet dreams. So for hetero males, if they dreamed that they had sex with a woman, that was the succubus who seduced them. But the incubus was more violent, so it was also an excuse for rape. If a woman woke up after she'd been drugged or boozed up and then raped, the priest would say it had been an incubus. Maybe he also raped dudes, I dunno.What does all this medieval nightrape have to do with the pictures in the Photo Issue, the ones you took at San Fratello, in Sicily?
When I decided to make a book about stuff that scares me, I started to document all the things that have frightened me for a long time. One of my more recurrent nightmares and fears has to do with faceless people and the idea of masks—it's something that I have always feared. Plus, I think it's also somewhat of an archetypal nightmare. So I did some research and found these religious festivals in southern Italy that have to do with masked men. These guys in San Fratello dress up to look like a devil, even if their name—I Giudei—is linked more with Judaism. But they aren't meant to be Jewish, per se. They're more like the tempting devil, dressed in red and smiling because Jesus died.Pretty anti-Semitic.
Well, yes and no. I mean, it would be easy to say that, but this is a festival that has existed for more than 500 years in deep, deep southern Italy. It's not like they lived in a society of mixed religions and hated a part of that society. I mean, at that time, I think, they were all—ALL—Catholic. It was more taken from the traditional stories about the Devil in the Bible.Well, yes, but they're represented as "the Jews" i.e. "the guys who killed Jesus" and "the guys who are happy he's dead" and "the Devils."
Sure. But again, keep in mind that these are all semi-literate shepherds and horse herders. So, whatever.I heard from the Internet that San Fratello is the birthplace of part of Al Pacino's family and the super-crooked Italian ex-Prime Minister, Bettino Craxi.
Really? I knew about Craxi because they all mentioned it when I was there, but I didn't know about Pacino. What I do know is that they're famous for their horses, the San Fratellano.What else is gonna be in the book? Last time we met you said something about snakes and graveyards.
Yes. Snakes, another religious festival in Sicily, and I also shot a series on haunted houses on Staten Island.TIM SMALL
Advertisement
Lele Saveri: I'm alright. I'm in LA.What's up over there?
I'm finishing a video with Giulia Venturini and No Age. I think I'll chill out in San Francisco for a couple of days after that.Wait, you're making a video for No Age?
No, no. They're making music for a video that I'm making with Giulia. They're going to write something on spec.That's pretty awesome, dude. Dean rules.
Yeah. Let's hope it turns out OK.So you're one of those photographers who's moving on to video, right?
I guess so. I've been thinking about doing this for quite some time. But this is a video I'm making to promote the book, which will be out in September. The book has a weird title—Incubi et succubi—so I wanted to express the concept of the demon, of the incubus and the succubus, creatures who come in the night and steal your soul while you're asleep by having sex with you. The video is a physical representation of that, in the sense that it will feature a person who falls asleep and dreams of a succubus that slowly steals his soul. I wanted to tell that story in relation to the book, but it also kind of became its own thing.The succubus, essentially, is the female version of the incubus, right?
Exactly. The succubus… well, in Latin I think it means something like "to lay down," like, "to succumb." Basically, she stays beneath you while the incubus climbs on top of you. So the succubus kind of crawls under you while you sleep and is represented as a kind of crawling demon in female form. These demons rape you at night. They rape you without you realizing it, because they cloak it with the dream. This is what people used to say in medieval times. It was something like a medieval justification for wet dreams.
Advertisement
Yep.
I think both, but I believe it was more common with women. I think it mainly had to do with explaining wet dreams. So for hetero males, if they dreamed that they had sex with a woman, that was the succubus who seduced them. But the incubus was more violent, so it was also an excuse for rape. If a woman woke up after she'd been drugged or boozed up and then raped, the priest would say it had been an incubus. Maybe he also raped dudes, I dunno.What does all this medieval nightrape have to do with the pictures in the Photo Issue, the ones you took at San Fratello, in Sicily?
When I decided to make a book about stuff that scares me, I started to document all the things that have frightened me for a long time. One of my more recurrent nightmares and fears has to do with faceless people and the idea of masks—it's something that I have always feared. Plus, I think it's also somewhat of an archetypal nightmare. So I did some research and found these religious festivals in southern Italy that have to do with masked men. These guys in San Fratello dress up to look like a devil, even if their name—I Giudei—is linked more with Judaism. But they aren't meant to be Jewish, per se. They're more like the tempting devil, dressed in red and smiling because Jesus died.Pretty anti-Semitic.
Well, yes and no. I mean, it would be easy to say that, but this is a festival that has existed for more than 500 years in deep, deep southern Italy. It's not like they lived in a society of mixed religions and hated a part of that society. I mean, at that time, I think, they were all—ALL—Catholic. It was more taken from the traditional stories about the Devil in the Bible.Well, yes, but they're represented as "the Jews" i.e. "the guys who killed Jesus" and "the guys who are happy he's dead" and "the Devils."
Sure. But again, keep in mind that these are all semi-literate shepherds and horse herders. So, whatever.I heard from the Internet that San Fratello is the birthplace of part of Al Pacino's family and the super-crooked Italian ex-Prime Minister, Bettino Craxi.
Really? I knew about Craxi because they all mentioned it when I was there, but I didn't know about Pacino. What I do know is that they're famous for their horses, the San Fratellano.What else is gonna be in the book? Last time we met you said something about snakes and graveyards.
Yes. Snakes, another religious festival in Sicily, and I also shot a series on haunted houses on Staten Island.TIM SMALL