A resident of Rome for many years, Andrea Segre was stuck in Venice by the Covid-19 lockdown between February and April 2020. He was working here, in his father’s city (in part also his), on theatre and film projects about the gaping wounds of Venice: tourism and flooding. While he was shooting, the virus froze and emptied the city before his eyes, returning it to its nature and history.
Personal archives, shot in super8 by Ulderico, the director’s father and star of the film, are cut with encounters with Venice residents who discuss the relationship between the city and the water while they live through the unexpected emptiness that invades Venice as it did a large part of the world. Tying the footage together are the director’s off screen narration, the score by Teho Teardo and an atmosphere of patient expectation and stunned surprise that colours all the visual and existential material of this strange journey, both unreal (in the sense of fantastic) and uncreatable (in the sense of unprogrammable, unorganizable), into the heart of a very real, historical event that has marked, and will mark, the world for ever.
A resident of Rome for many years, Andrea Segre was stuck in Venice by the Covid-19 lockdown between February and April 2020. He was working here, in his father’s city (in part also his), on theatre and film projects about the gaping wounds of Venice: tourism and flooding. While he was shooting, the virus froze and emptied the city before his eyes, returning it to its nature and history.
Personal archives, shot in super8 by Ulderico, the director’s father and star of the film, are cut with encounters with Venice residents who discuss the relationship between the city and the water while they live through the unexpected emptiness that invades Venice as it did a large part of the world. Tying the footage together are the director’s off screen narration, the score by Teho Teardo and an atmosphere of patient expectation and stunned surprise that colours all the visual and existential material of this strange journey, both unreal (in the sense of fantastic) and uncreatable (in the sense of unprogrammable, unorganizable), into the heart of a very real, historical event that has marked, and will mark, the world for ever.
Andrea Segre’s documentary describes the fragility of life in the heart of Venice, a city both marvellous and fearful as it slowly empties out.
