Dir: Gianfranco Rosi | Italy Documentary 115’ 2025
Best known for his Berlinale winning title Fire At Sea Gianfranco Rosi returns to Venice where he previously won the Golden Lion for Sacro Gra and most recently Notturno with this latest meditation on the natural phenomena of his native Italy – this time the subject is Mount Vesuvius – and the haunting shadow it casts with volcanic threats that hang over the region like the sword of Damocles.
Between Mount Vesuvius and the Gulf of Naples, the ground shakes periodically and the fumaroles of the Phlegraean Fields taint the air. From the traces of history, memories of the subterranean world, and the concerns of the present, in black and white, a lesser-known Naples emerges and fills with voices with lives.
Below the clouds lies a territory crisscrossed by locals, worshippers, tourists, and archaeologists excavating a past that in museums will give new life and meaning to statues, fragments, and ruins. The train that rings Vesuvius makes its rounds as racehorses train along the shore. A teacher runs a makeshift afterschool for children and adolescents. Firemen in their command center calm the fears of the locals who call in, law enforcement tracks down tomb robbers, while in the port of Torre Annunziata, Syrian tankers unload Ukrainian grain. The land that skirts the gulf is a vast time machine. Glowering in its monochrome allure this is a spectacular visionary piece of filmmaking that tethers the area to its tragic past, transcending all things mortal – it’s almost as if some superior being is looking down on the ground.
Meanwhile a team of Japanese archaeologists continue their twenty-year excavation of Villa Augustea, extracting history from seeds, bones and layers of sediment. Tourists wander the ruins of Pompeii, and worshippers prostrate themselves at the church of the Madonna dell’Arco, where the crypts and ex-votos attest to the belief of a world that has survived. The land that skirts the Gulf is a vast time machine.
VENICE FILM FESTIVAL 2025 |