​​The Monreale syndrome strikes filmmakers when they try to film cloisters and sacred places of particular beauty: the effect of this affection are convulsive and frenetic camera movements. Suddenly everything learned in manuals is forgotten and disappears. Even the cameras go haywire, producing out-of-phase images. It was precisely at the cloister of Monreale that the young Palermitan Nicola Schicchi was struck by the syndrome on 30 December 1962 and began convulsively filming the cloister and bell tower of the famous monastery, up and down, repeatedly, trying in vain to keep his eye on the German girlfriend he had brought to visit this magnificent place a few kilometres from Palermo. And like him, many film lovers in Monreale have been caught up in this sudden fever, losing the steady hand that usually distinguishes them. It is from this magical place that the syndrome derives its name. As if that were not enough on the same day, Nicola tries again in Palermo, this time in the San Giovanni degli Eremiti complex, but even there the cloister, the domes and the bell tower are fatal. It will also be the excitement of being with his fiancée and especially with his future mother-in-law, who is also German!