For a cinematic geography. Stendalì – Suonano ancora (1960) by Cecilia Mangini, for a Salento to be told and preserved

This paper explores the territorializing power of documentary cinema as a means of interpreting and reshaping the relationship between communities and their places. Focusing on Stendalì – Suonano ancora (1960), directed by Cecilia Mangini with a script by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the study employs a geosemiotic approach to examine how visual narratives can contribute to reconfiguring collective memory and spatial identity. The film documents one of the last ritual lamentations in Griko dialect from the Grecìa Salentina area of southern Italy, revealing a universe of symbolic and cultural meanings often obscured by stereotypical portrayals of the region as primitive or archaic. Through the lens of cinematic geography, the authors argue that such documentary works function as dynamic tools of territorial narration—capable of preserving, reinterpreting, and revitalizing local heritage. In this way, visual storytelling becomes both an archive of memory and a catalyst for future-oriented territorial development grounded in cultural continuity.