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PRODUCTION / FUNDING Italy

Michelangelo Frammartino is filming Il buco

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- The new feature from the director of Le quattro volte is now filming in Pollino National Park. A co-production between Italy, France and Germany, with Renato Berta as director of photography

Michelangelo Frammartino is filming Il buco
Director Michelangelo Frammartino

In Pollino National Park, in Calabria, Italian director Michelangelo Frammartino (Il dono [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, Le quattro volte [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michelangelo Frammartino
interview: Savina Neirotti
film profile
]
) is currently shooting his new feature film, Il buco [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michelangelo Frammartino
film profile
]
(litt. "The Hole"). The film relates the extraordinary adventure of the young members of the Piedmont Speleological Group who, having already explored all the caves of Northern Italy, changed course in August 1961 and went South to explore other caves unknown to man, plunging into the underground of a region abandoned by all. In the Pollino, a mountainous range on the border between Calabria and Basilicata with inaccessible peaks of immaculate beauty, these very young speleologists, descending into the darkness of the earth, discovered the world’s second deepest cave, the Bifurto Abyss. The actors in the film, in addition to the 12 speleologists selected during a year and a half of casting throughout Italy, will be actual local shepherds.

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The director explains: “In 1961, the worldwide economic boom was at its peak, spreading everywhere an atmosphere of optimism and an enthusiasm for racing for the top which, in Italy, saw the construction of the monumental Pirelli skyscraper, symbol of the highest vertical goal. Simultaneously, Moscow placed its outpost beyond the sky, even piercing the atmosphere, with the launch of its cosmonaut into space. Going against the current, a few young speleologists a little over twenty-years-old descended into the earth to explore other depths…”

“To use a cinematic term”, adds Frammartino, “we could say that the caves constitute the absolute off-screen space, as the eternal night that reigns within them could seem the most hostile to the camera. However, those who love cinema know very well that the off-screen space, the invisible, represents our deepest ‘substance.’ I am struck by the coincidence that speleology, cinema, and psychoanalysis were born in the same year, in 1895…”

Il buco is produced by Doppio Nodo Double Bind with Rai Cinema, in co-production with Société Parisienne de Production (France), Essential Filmproduktion (Germany) — both part of Coproduction Office — with support from the Calabria Film Commission, Mibact, the CNC, Arte/ZDF, Eurimages and with the collaboration and patronage of the Pollino National Park, in which filming is taking place from 5 August to 26 October.

The cinematography is handled by Swiss master Renato Berta who has worked with great names such as Godard, Resnais, Rohmer, De Oliveira, Gitai, and in Italy has won the David di Donatello award for Best Cinematography for his work on Mario Martone’s We Believed [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mario Martone
interview: Mario Martone
film profile
]
. Coproduction Office is handling international sales.

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(Translated from Italian)

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