THIS SHORT FILM FOLLOWS PHOTOGRAPHER and artist Matthew Rolston on a journey from Hollywood, California to Palermo, Sicily, documenting the production process of his photographic series Vanitas. Comprised of fifty portraits, Vanitas is a project created from the artist’s intensive exploration into the mummified individuals on display, upright, inside the famed Capuchin Catacombs at Palermo’s Church of Santa Maria della Pace.

Representing over three centuries of interment and containing thousands of Palermo’s deceased – among them the highest levels of its clergy and the city’s most illustrious citizens – these remarkably preserved, sometimes exquisitely dressed corpses have been displayed for centuries in its ancient crypts, vaults and wall niches.

Written by Alessandra Pasquino, Matthew Rolston, and Sean Nalaboff. Directed by Alessandra Pasquino. Edited by Sean Nalaboff.