Attraverso un premio dedicato ai giovani talenti del cinema italiano, Young Italian Film Director Prize 2011, l'Istituto Italiano di Cultura di New York vuole ribadire il suo interesse nei confronti di una settima arte nazionale ancora fresca e promettente. I film infatti premiati sono stati oggetto di molte attenzioni, sin dal loro esordio, da parte della critica ed hanno  già ottenuto diversi riconoscimenti sia nazionali che internazionali.

 
E,  Classe '76 per Silvia Luzi, '78 per Luca Bellino e '80 per Fabio Mollo,  sono i  vincitori della prima edizione, tutti e tre hanno  un passato recente interessante che lascia intravedere una promessa di successo per il futuro prossimo.

Presenti durante la proiezione in programma lo scorso 23 maggio nella prestigiosa sede di Park Avenue, i tre vincitori si sono messi a confronto con pubblico e stampa nella tavola rotonda che ha seguito la visione delle due opere vincitrici: “La Minaccia” di Luca Bellino e Silvia Luzi e “Giganti” di Fabio Mollo.

In “Giganti”, Fabio Mollo mette in atto il consiglio principe per i giovani artisti, occuparsi diciò che si conosce bene, ma veramente molto bene. In questo caso, sin dalla nascita. Quindici minuti di un dilemma di formazione che raccontano la storia del quindicenne Pietro, impegnato a diventare uomo nella complessa realtà calabrese. Ambientato nel paese d'origine di Mollo, questo villaggio vicino Reggio Calabria è stato per anni “il luogo da cui fuggire – ha raccontato il regista – così, quando mi sono dovuto cimentare con il mio corto di fine corso per il Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, ho deciso di affrontare questo mio personale scoglio e tornare lì”. La volontà di affrontare i propri fantasmi ha, dunque, sposato la voglia di fare del “vero cinema italiano – ha ribadito Mollo appena presa la parola – perché io credo veramente nel nostro cinema”.
 
Alcune figure, ancora solo abbozzate nel cortometraggio – come l'androgina adolescente che Pietro difende dal bullismo del “capo branco” e dall'omertà dei suoi coetanei – hanno sollevato molto interesse nel pubblico presente, dando al regista spunti per riflettere su possibili ulteriori sviluppi della trama e dei personaggi. Infatti, nonostante l'argomento non sia stato affrontato durante la serata, in altre occasioni è già stata ventilata la possibilità di trasformare “Giganti” in un lungometraggio.
 
Già menzione speciale per la regia ai Nastri d'Argento nel 2008, “Giganti” nel 2009 vince il Cinemaster, progetto annuale per giovani registi italiani organizzato da Studio Universal. All'epoca solo ventinovenne, il giovane regista calabrese viene velocemente proiettato nella realtà degli Studios di Los Angeles; gli viene, infatti, offerta la possibilità di vivere e studiare il dietro le quinte delle grandi produzioni holliwoodiane per due settimane.
 
Lontano dalle luci dello show business, ma comunque al centro di molte attenzioni da parte di istituzioni, festival e stampa, è il documentario sul Venezuela di Chávez intitolato “La Minaccia”. Girato da Luca Bellino, regista documentarista e professore all'Università Roma Tre, e da Silvia Luzi, giornalista free lance che collabora con la Rai, il film racconta i sei mesi di campagna elettorale per la presidenza «illimitata» chiesta da Hugo Chávez. Nello sfondo, la vita e le immagini di un paese diviso tra l'eccitazione di una rivoluzione e la paura di una deriva totalitaria.
 
Alla sua realizzazione, storia e promozione è stato dedicato un intero sito. Trasmesso in oltre venticinque festival, in tv il documentario è rimasto bloccato per quasi due anni. Uscito in DVD nel 2009, “La Minaccia” era diventato un piccolo caso italiano. la Rai, infatti, lo aveva acquistato immediatamente per inserirlo in uno speciale su Rai Uno. In realtà, la tv nazionale ha semplicemente lasciato scadere i diritti senza mai mandarlo in onda. Acquistato, infine, da Sky, in Italia è stato trasmesso da Current nel settembre del 2009.
 
Ed è stata proprio con una serie di domande ai due documentaristi che Andrea Visconti, giornalista de La Repubblica e L'Espresso e moderatore della serata, ha inaugurato la tavola rotonda. Coinvolto soprattutto dalle molteplici possibili interpretazioni del titolo di questo lungo docu-film, plularità che emerge molto più chiaramente dopo la visione del documentario, Vincenti ha interrogato Bellino e Luzi.
 
“Ma voi due, personalmente, a quale Minaccia vi riferivate quando avete deciso per questo titolo?”
“È questo il senso del titolo – ha risposto Bellino – si apre a diverse letture, le minacce sono tante, ad ognuno la sua interpretazione”.
 
Numerose le domande da parte del pubblico, che si è intrattenuto fino a tardi per poter interrogare i protagonisti della tavola rotonda, molto coinvolto dagli aspetti più tecnici del modus operandi e dei vantaggi del lavorare e collaborare con le piccole produzioni, rispetto alle ben più note “majors”.
 
Invitati a rispondere alle domande del moderatore e del pubblico anche Antonio Campos, scrittore e sceneggiatore; Isa Cucinotta, Managing Director of Education e Program Associate per il New York Film Festival and New Directors/New Films Festival; Julia Pacetti, Presidente e Fondatore della JMP Verdant e David Klein, Senior Director della New York Film Academy, che ha inoltre offerto ai tre vincitori un corso di otto settimane nella propria istituzione.
 
Un'occasione interessante quella proposta dall'Istituto di Cultura di New York dedicata a due “rami minori”, ma non per questo meno produttivi, dell'arte cinematografica italiana. Soprattutto un appuntamento per scoprire tanto il Venezuela di Chávéz quanto la Calabria del giovane Pietro attraverso gli occhi di tre promesse del cinema italiano.
 

Calandra Institute’s Annual Conference promises to be a memorable one in 2012. From April 26 to April 28, the Institute will host a series of panels approaching the topic of white ethinicity in America today.

“Reimagining White Ethnicity: Expressivity, Identity, Race” seeks to reclaim white ethnicity as a complex and historically situated site that invites reflections on those heterogeneous and hybridic identities that often challenge hegemonic narratives and histories. 

It locates European-American ethnicities in relation to recent scholarship on whiteness, transnationalism, and diaspora. the conference positions collectives such as Greek America, Irish America, Italian America, Polish America, and others as historically distinct yet interrelated cultural fields, whose complexities have not been sufficiently recognized by scholarship. 

Conference participants investigate historical trends and recent developments in the cultural expression of these ethnicities, including revitalization of heritage, institution-building, transnational exchanges, hybridities, and progressive cultural politics that emerge in the wake of globalization and multiculturalism.

i-Italy has interviewed Dr Joseph Sciorra, Associate Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at Calandra Institute, to learn more about the conference and the important topics it draws the academic attention upon.

 Where did the idea for the conference come from?

Until now, Calandra Institute has been organizing its annual conference on the topic of Italianness. In the past it was about Italian immigrants and their descendants returning to Italy, about the notion of land, landscape and geography, and last year the conference was about film, food and fashion from everywhere: Italy, United States and Canada.

This year is different, because we have expanded beyond the Italian realm. I was inspired by reading a book by Yiorgos Anagnostou called Contours of White Ethnicity: Popular Ethnography and the Making of Usable Pasts in Greek America. He is a Professor at Ohio State University and he will be one of the two keynote speakers.

I am involved in Italian-American studies, and it was interesting to see similar topics and similar things discussed from a Greek-American perspective. 

It seemed that there were enough differences but enough similarities to broad in scope beyond Italians. In addition, the idea that some academic circles have that European immigrants melted in some general whiteness is a little simplistic. That emerges in part with older studies on immigration from 1970, but as well as in recent studies on whiteness. The idea is to have a large conversation about the differences and similarities among white communities.

Identity, multiculturalism, ethnicity, race. These words are part of the program of the conference. Could you help us understand their real meaning in this context?

 
It's a key term for a self and group representation. In the context of that, the conference explores issues of Identity. There's no single definition, the conference will leave it to the participants to discuss, argue, debate about what that means. I think that identity is going to have a different sense for every scholar, anthropologist, sociologist.

Any of those words is problematic, but I think the word Ethnicity is the most complicated. For many contemporary scholars, ethnicity doesn't mean Italian-American or Polish-American, it means more “people of color.” It has come to me from some scholars, not from all, and this conference is an opportunity to also raise a sort of contemporary subject for academia. This conference will provide a forum for the these kinds of conversations.

What can you say about the relationship between the topic of the conference, white ethnicity, and the city where this conference will be held, New York City?

I wouldn't say ethnicity, but ethnicities, because ethnicities are plural and this is exactly what the conference is about. There is no single white ethnicity, there is no single form of white ethnic expression. There are multiple ones. The appearances or existences or performances of white ethnicity in New York City takes many forms.

The right topic, in the right place, in the right moment...

It is not necessarily a hot topic, I don't think it is more important today than it was yesterday or it will be in the future. As the program shows, it is a topic that has gotten some shift in Academia in the present. 

The idea, for example, that because the contemporary Italian-Americans are the third, fourth, fifth or sixth generations they don't have the sense of Italianess is a false one.

Sense of ethnic identity is not necessarily based on proximity to an immigrant population. You can express yourself as an Italian-American and not speak Italian and not eat spaghetti and not dance tarantella. That's one of the elements of the conference.

In your opinion, what is the main feature of this conference?

I'm very excited that the conference is engaging with scholars who deal with other communities than the Italian-American. This conference in part of an ongoing contemporary scholarly conversation that we are part of.  And we will be able to engage in multiple panels with colleagues studying different communities. 

Conference Program:

(click here to see Conference Live-Stream)

Thursday, April 26, 2012 

6-8 pm  

Welcome and Reception  

Fred Gardaphé  

Queens College, CUNY  

Joseph Sciorra  

John D. Calandra Italian American Institute  

Christos P. Ioannides  

Center for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies  

Katharine Cobb 

Queens College, CUNY 

Lucia Pasqualini  

Consulate General of Italy in New York  

Friday, April 27, 2012

9:30-10:45 am

Conference Room

Representing Italian Americans

Chair: Dennis Barone, Saint Joseph College

Images of Italian Americans in African-American Literature during 

Jim Crow

Samuele F. S. Pardini, Elon University 

Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin and the Erasure of Italian-

American Experience

Nancy Caronia, University of Rhode Island 

Homespun History, Youngstown Style: Ethnic Representation in Do-It-Yourself Narratives

Anthony D. Mitzel, Università di Bologna 

La Galleria

Missed Opportunities: The 1970s Resurgence of White Ethnic Identity and the Left

Chair: Gaia Giuliani, Università di Bologna

The Threat of a Good Example: Twentieth-Century Solidarity Identities in Working-Class White Communities

James Tracy, San Francisco Community Land Trust 

White Lightning: Organizing the White Working Class in the Bronx, 1971-1975 

Gil Fagiani, Italian American Writers Association

Beyond Whiteness 

Lynn Lewis, Picture the Homeless

11 am-12:15 pm

Conference Room

Keynote: Ethnic Acts: On "European Ethnicity" Cultural Politics

Yiorgos Anagnostou, Ohio State University

1:30-2:45 pm

Conference Room

Negotiating Scandinavian Identities

Chair: Samuele F.S. Pardini, Elon University

Lox and Lax: How Marcus Samuelsson Merges Ethnicities 

for Consumption 

Jonathan Bean, The New School

Latex, Hijabs, and the Refiguration of the Swedish Folk Costume

Anna Blomster, University of California, Los Angeles

Heritage Envy: Selecting the "Danish Days" Maid in Solvang, California

Hanne Pico Larsen, Columbia University

La Galleria

Family, Food, and Cultural Capital

Chair: Robert Oppedisano, Editor

Traditional Greek-American Child-Rearing

Marilyn Ann Verna, St. Francis College 

Italian Foodways as a Marker of Ethnicity: Italians Are What They Eat

Patrizia La Trecchia, University of South Florida 

Italian-American Cultural Capital

Paola Melone, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute

3-4:15 pm

Conference Room

The Greeks of New York City: Contemporary Trends and Historical Contexts

Chair: Christos P. Ioannides, Center for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Queens College, CUNY

Greek Americans of Queens: Ethnic Identity in the Second Generation of Post-1965 Immigrants

Nicholas Alexiou, Queens College, CUNY

Greek Immigrants and Greek Americans in New York City Observed through the National Census

Anna Karpathakis, Kingsborough Community College, CUNY

Films about Greek Americans in New York: A Case Study of the Greek-American Image in American Cinema

Dan Georgakas, Center for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Queens College, CUNY

La Galleria

Clef Notes on Music

Chair: Gil Fagiani, Italian American Writers Association

The Wanderers: Italian-American Doo Wop, Sense of Place, and Racial Crossovers in Postwar New York City

Simone Cinotto, Università degli Studi di Scienze Gastronomiche

Living the Dance in Tarpon Springs

Panayotis League, Hellenic College 

Polishness in Terms of Authenticity, Social Conservatism, and Whiteness in Buffalo, New York

Marta Marciniak, University at Buffalo, SUNY

4:30-5:45 pm

Conference Room

White Privilege

Chair: David Michalski, University of California, Davis

Beyond Racism, Beyond Whiteness: A Critical Investigation of White Privileged Discourse

Kathryn Peterson, New York University

The Dialectic of White Privilege: Resisting Habits of Privilege with Merleau-Ponty

Kristin Anne Rodier, University of Alberta

Antiracism as Rhetoric: Arizona's House Bill 2281 and Saving Ethnic Studies through a "Dis-Knowing" Critical Pedagogy

Julia Istomina, Ohio State University

Saturday, April 28, 2012

9:30-10:45 am

Conference Room

Historicizing Italian Americans and Race

Chair: Cristina Lombardi-Diop, Loyola University Chicago

"Fatti di sangue": Italian Americans, Race, and Justice in the Late 

Nineteenth Century 

Bénédicte Deschamps, Université Paris Diderot  

A Race Destined to Expire: Prominenti, Native Americans, and the Boundaries of Civilization and Race

Peter G. Vellon, Queens College, CUNY

The Social Construction and Contestation of Whiteness in York 

County, Pennsylvania

Justin D. Garcia, Millersville University

La Galleria

The Body and Sexuality

Chair: Donna M. Chirico, York College, CUNY

The Sports Race: Alexi, Cioffari, and Body Versus Brain

Dennis Barone, Saint Joseph College

"I Must Maintain This Rigid Posture or All is Lost": The Trials and Tribulations of R. Crumb's Whiteman

Joseph Cosco, Old Dominion University

Public Sexuality and Whiteness in Gentrifying Neighborhoods: A Comparative Case Study in Williamsburg and Park Slope, Brooklyn

Laura Braslow, Graduate Center, CUNY and Lidia K. C. Manzo, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute

11 am-12:15 pm

Conference Room

Keynote: White Ethnicity and the Discourse of Authenticity 

in Modern Paganisms

Sabina Magliocco, California State University, Northridge

1:30-2:45 pm

Conference Room

Questioning Race and Whiteness

Chair: Peter G. Vellon, Queens College, CUNY

How Ethnicity Trumps Race in the Struggle for Self-Identity

Donna M. Chirico, York College, CUNY

Italian Americans and Whiteness through the Lens of Americanization: Toward a Critique of Racial Reason

James S. Pasto, Boston University

From Oppressed to Oppressor without Even Trying

James S. Pula, Purdue University North Central

La Galleria

Imagining Greek Americans

Chair: Dan Georgakas, Center for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Queens College, CUNY

Changing Images of Greek Immigrants within American Mainstream Society: A Historical Overview Based on Documentary Sources and Case Studies

Constantine G. Hatzidimitriou, New York City Department 

of Education 

The Book Culture of Greek Americans

Maria Kaliambou, Yale University

Schadenfreude, Anxiety, and Representation in the Era of the Greek Debt Crisis in a Greek Diasporic Community

Leo Vournelis, Southern Illinois University 

3-4:15 pm

Conference Room

Continuities and Discontinuities in Italy's Racial Identity

Chair: Patrizia La Trecchia, University of South Florida

An Anthropological Perspective on Italian Ethnicity from the Colonial Age to Post-Colonialism

Moira Luraschi, Università degli Studi dell'Insubria, Varese 

The Construction of Italianness: Masculinity and Race in Liberal and Early Fascist Italy

Gaia Giuliani, Università di Bologna

Spotless Italy: Hygiene, Advertisement, and the Ubiquity of Whiteness

Cristina Lombardi-Diop, Loyola University Chicago

La Galleria

Comparative Approaches

Chair: Bénédicte Deschamps, Université Paris Diderot  

White on Arrival?: A Comparison of the Racial Status of Italian 

Immigrants on the East and West Coasts

Stefano Luconi, Università degli Studi di Padova

"What if I'm Too Spicy-Italian for Them?": Italian Canadians and 

Whiteness Studies

Krysta Pandolfi, York University

Foreign Shades of White: The Transnational Experience of Greek and 

Italian Communities in Australia and the United States

Andonis Piperoglou, La Trobe University

4:30-5:45 pm

Conference Room

Heritage Festivals and Roots Journeys

Chair: Sabina Magliocco, California State University, Northridge

Czech Heritage Festivals in the Midwest: Symbolizing Ethnicity in Rural Spaces

Karen Kapusta-Pofahl and Elizabeth Nech, Washburn University

The Lost Apostrophe: Race and the Irish-American Roots Journey

Sinead Moynihan, University of Exeter

Reconsidering White Ethnic Revivals: Italian Americans and Italian Immigration in the 1950s and 1960s

Danielle Battisti, Colby College

La Galleria

Deconstructing and Reconfiguring Italian Americans

Chair: Joseph Cosco, Old Dominion University

Race and Taste in the Olive Garden: On the Tuscanization of 

American Culture

David Michalski, University of California, Davis

"Calling Myself Olive": Italian Americans as Mediterranean Americans

Jim Cocola, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Beyond the Ghetto: Deconstructing White Italian-American Ethnicity

Dora Labate, Rutgers University 

The first time I saw Aileen Riotto Sirey, Founder & Chair of National Organization of Italian American Women (NOIAW), was at the Conference organized by Calandra Institute, “Geraldine Ferraro: The Italian American Woman Who Made History” at Hunter College, last March 24.

In the presence of Arthur Gajarsa, Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit; Natalia Quintavalle, Consul General of Italy of New York, and introduced by Anthony Julian Tamburri, Dean at the John D. Calandra Italian/American Institute, Aileen Riotto Sirey was there to pay homage to her best friend, Geraldine Ferraro. 

Next to Sirey was Geraldine's husband, John. In front of her, the audience. Most of the guests were people who knew or met Geraldine, and loved her. During the Q&A, everyone had a memory about Jerry they were thrilled to share. Soon enough, the event became like a family gathering and the walls of the hall resonated with laughter.

It would have been a shame if someone had broken that special atmosphere. As a reporter, I was afraid of doing so. Hence, I met Aileen Sirey in a café, a few days later, for an interview. Step by step, the interview itself became a warm and interesting conversation on Geraldine.

Ms Sirey, I would like you to help me to know Jerry Ferraro better. She was a role model for Italian-American women, but I am interested in knowing more about her as a person. Where should I start?

The history of her family. She felt a strong and warm link with her roots and she was always connected with her Italian cousins, even after her father’s death. She was always very very proud to be Italian and she suffered a lot for the bad reputation Italian-Americans had.

What do you mean?

I'll give you a couple of examples. During the Sam Donaldson's show -- maybe you don't know it in Italy but was very popular here -- he was asked: “Why are you looking for Mafia about Ms Ferraro Family?” and he said, and I'm quoting him, “if you have an Italian-American background and you are in a public office you can be guaranteed that. Why not look for that?”

It made people very very angry, because there's always this description.

I have a very good friend in the furniture business and he's a welcoming man. You know, he offers his own limousine, his own driver and so on, but what do you think people believe? It comes from Mafia, if he has money he is in the Mafia.
 

I've been criticize myself because I have said that the fascination that America has for the Godfather and the Soprano’s is not about crime, it's about our families. Americans are fascinated with Italian families, where everybody has his own role, and with the Italian value of family.
 

The fascination is with the relationships between these people.

Geraldine suffered for that. As a psychologist, how would you consider these kinds of feelings against Italian-American people?

Twenty years ago I made a research. I put several Italian-Americans together and we talked about discrimination and problems they met in their life. It was a men and women study; they met ten weeks, once a week, for two hours, just talk about Italian American issues. It was wonderful. At the end of the meetings we found that their self-esteem had increased. There was an increase in sense of belonging.

But with the third, forth, maybe fifth generation there are not just Italian-Americans, but Italian-American-Irish people, or Italian-American-Chinese as well. What's happening now?

You're right, after twenty years a lot of things are changed and I was also asked to repeat the study. But I didn't.

Coming back to Geraldine’s life, how heavy was it for her?

I'll give you another example. When Jerry went to the Senate, in one of John's buildings, in one of those apartments, there was a pornographer. It became big news. How was that told by the papers? They said John rented one of his apartments to a pornographer, that he supported pornography. It was ridiculous. But the problem was not just with supporting pornography: everybody in this country at the time believed that pornography was managed by the Mafia.

There was an article in The New York Times by Gloria Steiner. She basically said that what you learn from Jerry Ferraro’s experience is that you have to be careful about the baggage your husband brings to you. It was terrible... I mean... What baggage? Her son wrote an article that was mentioned by Fox news. He was defending his father. He wrote: “my mother went to law school because my father paid for that.”

Geraldine was also a wife and a mother. She seems to be an antipodal women compared to the business woman stereotype. She was very close to her children and husband.

Jerry was very naturally woman, she raised three kids. Her children are perfectly sane.
 

The oldest, Donna, was a television producer and now she's working a film on Jerry. Her son, John Jr., is a lawyer and works with his father, and the youngest , Laura Anne Lee, is a pediatrician.

When we talked, she always told stories about her kids and she never talked about other things. The first thing we discussed when she knew about her disease was what would happen to her children, if they would be together, you know.

She fought for twelve years.

And John... As he said at the conference, he financed her campaign but he was a very devoted husband until the hours of her death.

I didn't tell you a story: One of the last times I went to visit her, I was with John in the clinic’s corridor. We were waiting to see Jerry who had had a treatment when we saw a nurse running to her room. She went to put Jerry in bed, and after few minutes the nurse came back and said “John, she wants YOU put her into the bed”.

She felt so fragile, her bones were so delicate that she trusted just her husband to be touched, no one else. And he handled her and helped her to lay in bed.

He was a good guy, he IS a great guy... But we also had a lot of fun, we laughed and... you know...

Actually, Saturday we laughed too.

 Sirey laughed. That's true, she was funny, but she was also very serious.

Most of all, Jerry was a socially concerned person. When she was sick, very sick, they (journalists) would write about her disease and she told them about her drugs. She wanted to keep helping people till the end. She meant: “What do people do if they don't have money to pay for healthcare that I have?”

She was always supporting people. She was a very socially concerned person because she loved people.

In your opinion, where did that come from?

She saw her mother’s struggle while raising two children. Jerry said that after her father died, money disappeared... she didn't know how.

She told me about a Christmas. She said: “I remember a Christmas, a few years after my father died. I met my mom at five and she invited me to take a cup of coffee. Probably she had saved a few dollars each day for that. When she went at the restaurant she left a Christmas pack on a shelf and someone stole it” and she said “I will never forget how panicked my mother was” I asked “what happened, Jerry?”, she said “I really don't know, maybe she had borrowed the money, she always protected me”. Jerry was always very connected to her mother because she knew how she sacrificed for her.

You mean that she was able to learn from her mother’s life as well?

She always identified, I would say, with the people who had less... even when she was very comfortable, she never forgot her roots, the family... the struggles that her mother had.

Over the years she became a role model for Italian American women. Was she conscious about it?

She really was, when she would come to a lunch she had always people around her...

I can say what I say: she did for Italian-American women like no other woman did.

As I said during my presentation, she was a perfect public servant because she was so concerned.

She was upset just once with me, when she said: “Aileen I'm going to run for the Senate,” and I said, “The senate? Why do you want to do that?”

Jerry said “What do you mean?” and I “Do you have to protect your place of history?, “My place of history?! I've got things to do! I've got move on! And I want to serve and I can do wonderfully like Senator,” she said.

I was like “Ok, Jerry... Sorry”.

But I think she faced hard moments in her career. I’m thinking about her losing the election, for example. Didn’t that discourage her and make her want to give up?

No, Jerry never thought like that, she was always like “ok, let's move on.” It wasn't things like winning an election that could hurt her. You know, she had thoughts like “I'm still me,” and she had a real sense who she was, thanks to her supporters.

 (Sirey took a little moment and she adds, smiling)

Yeah, she was like “come on, let’s move on!”

And how was Jerry as friend?

(Sirey's smile becomes beaming)

She was very traditional, she loved to play golf and she loved to cook. We both love to cook, actually. We often exchanged recipes and we often called each other to say “what are you doing for dinner?” (She laughed), or “I'm making this,” or “John likes that”.

That was the kind of conversations we had... we spoke about the garden.

Is there anything you would like to add to our conversation?

As I told during my presentation, she was a perfect public servant because she was so concerned.

There was a quote in Times sometime ago. It said: “Men go to the Congress because they want be something, women go to the Congress because they want to do something”. Jerry was like that, she wanted to do something. (She was silent for a while) And I understood that.

As we stood up and were about to leave, she added:

But... I was telling you, when she was sick I was trying to figure out what was happening.

I'm psychologist but, you know, when you're so close to somebody it's very hard to be objective.

So, it's only been a year now... I miss her... chatting... being together... there was such a trust between us...