Object of Riddle

Il mondo o niente is the isolated and fantasized south of Italy. But this other world is very close, crossed by a modernity blended with an idealized archaism: peasants have iPhone 6 and wolves respond to the sound of a megaphone, while mysterious machines observe the stars and an oil refinery poisons the waters of the territory.

Voice splinters recovered from different archives recall, with images entirely shot in 16mm and super8, dark and further scenarios, blots difficult to erase.

Italian independent filmaker Chiara Caterina and Venice based sound artist Nicola Di Croce spent together a long time photographing, filming, writing and recording in a deep exploration of Basilicata region, Southern Italy, “in search of its pieces of bitterness and wonder”. Il mondo di sotto is the result of this audiovisual inquiry that crosses landscapes, territories and elements from the high mountains of Pollino to the underground world of mines in the Val d’Agri area, 100 mt below the surface of the earth. They walked in the rain and sunshine, meeting people, experiencing desolate places and flourishing plateaus, water and ground, finding a sense of landscape animated by the magical, but aiming at exploring coexistences and divergences between modernity and traditions, past and present, artificial and natural, terrestrial and subterranean.

Back home after a break-up, a man finds himself in an empty room. The movements and actions he performs mark the time of his loneliness, and a few objects offer him temporary comfort, before a deep sleep seizes him. A lucid dream will initiate a healing process.

"Into The Outside" is a meditation on the nocturnal world of Campania in South Italy. Nature is there in the fireflies, bats, frogs, crabs, running water and plants but there are also the huge industrial structures of the wind turbines: each individual mast flashes a red light and seen en masse the fans resemble a constellation brought to earth. The atmosphere is presided over by a rising full moon viewed from different locations.