L’ABISSO
THE ABYSS
Alessandro Anderloni / Italy / 2005 / 75 min / Colour
Awe-inspiring, harsh, and with
only a single entrance, the Spluga della Preta plunges beneath the meadows of
the Lessinia Mountains. Explored for the first time in 1925, until 1953 it was
considered the deepest abyss in the world. It is the cave that more than any
other is linked to the history of explorative speleology, where dreams, ideals,
and deceits have faced off and new techniques have been experimented. In its
amazing wells and narrow fissures, some of the most exciting pages of
speleology in the world have been written.
The first video documentation of the Black Room, at more than 800 meters
below ground level, required two years of filming, thirty descents into the
caverns, and the involvement of more than seventy speleologists, and has by now become a classic of films about speleology.
Alessandro Anderloni
After earning a degree in Modern Literature, he devoted his energy to the theatre, as both author and director, writing and staging more than fifty original works. After collaborating with RAI on the programme La storia siamo noi, in 2000 he made his first documentary film, L’abisso, which garnered ten international prizes. He has been the artistic director of the Film Festival della Lessinia since 1997.
Credits
Subject Francesco SauroScreenplay Francesco Sauro, Alessandro AnderloniSound Samuele TezzaEditing Paolo CastellettiMusic Alessandro AnderloniMain cast Sandro Dalle Pezze, Giovanni Ferrarese, Cristiano Zoppello, Fanny Cerato, Marco Baroncini, Attilio Benetti, Aurelio Pavanello, Lorenzo Cargnel, Giordano Canducci, Franco Florio, Edoardo VernierProduction company Accademia della Lessinia e Federazione Speleologica Veneta