MittelCinemaFest: Pod oblakmi, r. G. Rosi, 2025

screenplay: Gianfranco Rosi | camera: Gianfranco Rosi | b/w | Italy | length 114′

In the original version with Slovak and English subtitles

The ground between the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius sometimes shakes, the smell of sulfur from the Phlegrean Fields floats in the air. The ruins have been covered by dirt, Roman villas lie on the seabed, Pompeii and Herculaneum speak of a future buried by time. On the remains of history, in the memory of the underground, an almost unknown black and white Naples comes to life. The earth lies beneath the clouds and city residents, believers and tourists walk on it, archaeologists uncover the past here and museum workers try to breathe life into statues, fragments and ruins, give them a new meaning. The Circumvesuviana railway winds through the countryside, trotters run along the beach. An itinerant teacher tutors children and adults, firefighters help people overcome small and big fears, police chase grave robbers, while in Torre Annunziata Syrian ships unload grain from Ukraine. A group of Japanese archaeologists has been researching the Villa of Emperor Augustus for twenty years, collecting seeds, bones, and stories of the deposits. Tourists wander among the ruins of Pompeii, worshipers kneel at the shrine of the Madonna dell'Arco, thanksgiving offerings and crypts speak of the thoughts of a world that is still alive. The landscape around the Bay of Naples is a giant time machine.