The Hole (Il Buco)

In 1961, a team of speleologists descended and charted the Bifurto Abyss in Southern Italy, then considered the deepest cave on Earth. In this breathtakingly beautiful film, multi-award-winning artist and filmmaker Michelangelo Frammartino recreates this journey, 700 metres towards the centre of the Earth; working with luscious images from Swiss master Cinematographer Renato Berta (whose past collaborators include Jean-Luc Godard and Éric Rohmer). Incorporating sequences set in the neighbouring town and a tale of an aging shepherd in the surrounding hills, Il Buco places the timeless wonder of the natural formation below the Earth’s surface in dialogue with the impermanence of the living world passing by above it.