Plot Synopsis:
In an unexpected convergence of art and life, Summer '82: When Zappa Came to Sicily is a story of two families--Sicilian filmmaker Salvo Cuccia and the children of Sicilian American rock icon Frank Zappa--as they try to reconnect with fathers who died young.
The tumultuous summer of 1982 is the playing field on which these parallel stories unfold and ultimately merge. The backdrop is the bloody mafia war that is raging in Sicily, Italy's triumphant win of the World Cup, and Zappa's World Tour, which climaxes with the first ever rock concert in Palermo. Told through the lens of the Italian portion of the tour in a style as eclectic as Zappa's music, the film features rare performance footage and interviews with Dweezil, Moon, Diva and Gail Zappa and Massimo Bassoli, Frank's friend and biographer, who was eyewitness to the events of that summer. The film crescendos in Palermo in an unexpected and emotional homecoming in which all of the seekers reach back though time to connect to something lost: parents, ancestry, homeland, and ultimately a more complete sense of identity.