Every year in February, Catania - a hard and dark Sicilian port city, sensuous and often aggressive - is transfigured for three days and three nights by a colossal religious festival. The city stops and honours its patron saint, a saint girl - Agata - who chose to be killed rather than give in to the strongman of her times. ''A Ferocious Devotion''tries to explore this stunning explosion of deep religious feelings in the heart of contemporary secular Europe.
