Martin Scorsese returned to his family heritage in Sicily for the 71st edition of the Taormina Film Festival. The iconic filmmaker, who received the lifetime achievement award at the Taormina Film Festival on June 12, reflected on his Sicilian heritage and praised U.S. immigrants during his heartfelt acceptance speech. This comes in light of the recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids that have unsettled Los Angeles in recent days.

Martin Scorsese reflects on his Sicilian heritageAccording to Variety, Scorsese stated on stage, "With the exception of Native Americans, we’re all either immigrants, children of immigrants or descendants of immigrants. The country is very young. It’s 250 years old, which is nothing in terms of world history. We’re learning. We’re just crawling. We haven’t begun yet to walk or talk."
The 82-year-old moved the audience when he recounted how, at the age of 5, while his family watched Roberto Rossellini's Paisá on TV, hearing the same Sicilian dialect spoken by his immigrant grandparents and parents in New York inspired him as a child to pursue filmmaking.
"It was there in that room, that night, that I had a calling to make movies, and to touch people in the same way that this film touched us that night. So it is Sicily that helped draw me to cinema and cinema drew me to Sicily," he expressed.
Martin Scorsese's homage to Frank CapraAlongside the award, Scorsese also honored filmmaker Frank Capra, who shares Sicilian roots. He described Capra's filmmaking style as addictive, stating that the only remedy was to create more films.
Deadline had previously reported that a screening of a restored version of Scorsese's 1976 classic Taxi Driver was also scheduled at the festival in its 8,000-seat open-air ancient Greek amphitheater.