Film series accompanying the natural history exhibition: The Hole

Cankarjev dom Cinema Film series accompanying the natural history exhibition: The Hole

Il buco
Italy, 2021, 93'
By Michelangelo Frammartino

The director accompanied a group of twelve speleologists, camera in tow, into the Bifurto Abyss – a cave located in the highlands of Pollino, Calabria, – in order to recreate the first exploration of the seemingly endless cave in 1961. The almost 700-metre-deep Bifurto Abyss is the third-deepest cave known on Earth.

In January 2007, the mayor of the Calabrian village where I was filming Le quattro volte, took me on a tour of the Pollino. ‘You must see the wonders of these mountains!’, he said. He brought me to a sinkhole where a meagre cut in the ground could be seen. I was perplexed, disappointed. The mayor, on the other hand, enthusiastic and proud, threw a large stone into that void. It got swallowed by darkness. The bottom was so deep that nothing could be seen nor heard. That disappearance, that lack of response, gave me a very strong emotion. That strange place stuck with me, calling me back to it years later, to question it and create a project within the silent blackness of the Bifurto Abyss.

Michelangelo Frammartino