by Valentina Pedicini.
*VISIONS DU RÉEL 2014 – Festival De Cinema – offical selection Regard Neuf | Swiss
*WINNER – BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY and DIRECTING – Al Jazeera IFF 2014 | Qatar
*WINNER – Best Italian Documentary – 8’FF Rome 2013, Premio Doc It – Prospettive Italia Doc
*WINNER – Award for Best Film – Visione Fuori Raccardo IFF | Italy
*Shortlisted – David Di Donatello Arward Feature Length Doc Section Italy
*Special Mention – Docville 2014 Belgium
*IDFA 2015 | Netherlands
*54th Festival Dei Popoli – International Documentary Film Festival Italy
*Special Mention – Nastri d’Argento FF 2014
*Special Mention – Bellaria Film Festival 2014
*Special Mention – Sguardi Altrove FF 2014
Where do we go when we die? ‘Underground’, they’ve always told us. Dal Profondo overturns those expectations, showing that hidden 500 metres below sea level, there is life: a long, endless night; a centuries-old form of labour that is both one’s pride and a curse. Tunnels for miles, darkness, blackened faces, and one woman, Patrizia, the only woman miner in Italy, talking with her dead father, an unburied memory. 150 miners, the last ones, ready to take on the world “above” to avert the imminent closing of the mine.
Dal Profondo – Dir.: Valentina Pedicini, DoP.: Jakob Stark
A unique experience for those who built, and those who filmed, this “upside-down” world. And a prayer for the dead that appeals to the living: “Out of the depths I cried to you, O Lord…” Director’s statement In certain stories numbers are not cold mathematical calculations but actual lives in danger. There are films that capture these existences and feel the need to recount their human adventure, appalled by the numerical progression plunging towards zero. Dal Profondo adds up all these figures and tries to show what they mean. 57,600 hours a miner spends underground; 500 metres below sea level; 150 miners in operation; 10 years without selling the coal they extract; 8 days of work; one woman: Patrizia. Wherever humanity gets the upper hand, the numbers tend to go up and tell whatever it’s impossible to see. A film turns into a human experience: 1 director; 2 years of work to get exclusive access; 4 crew members who lived in the mine: 26 days spent underground; 70 minutes of a film to take you into the darkness. The style is radical; filmed completely underground, Dal Profondo is long silences, the editing suspended, and a lone voice – of a woman. A film about absence, struggle and a life in the dark.
Creative Documentary Film for Cinema release
Valentina Pedicini: Director/Author
Luca Mandrile: Editing
Veronika Kaserer: General Manager
Jakob Stark: Cinematographer
Martin Fliri: Sound Engineer
Simone Rivoire: Steady Cam/1. AC
Livia Romano: 1. AC
Alessandro Borrelli: Producer
Production: La Sarraz by Alessandro Borrelli
