25/07/2025 - The documentary dedicated to the “colossal time machine” that is Naples will compete for the Golden Lion, a prize the director already received in 2013 for Sacro GRA

Between the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius, the land sometimes shakes while the Phlegraean Fields’ fumaroles release steam into the air. On the trail of history and seeking out memories of an underground world, we discover a lesser known version of Naples, in black and white and full of life. Gianfranco Rosi will be among the various Italians taking part in the Official Competition at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival with Below the Clouds, a documentary dedicated to Naples: beneath the clouds – the film synopsis explains – there’s a land which is crisscrossed by locals, devotees, tourists and archaeologists delving into the past, by museum folk who try to breathe life and meaning into statues, fragments and ruins. The Circumvesuviana train line cuts across the landscape, trotting horses train on the shoreline. A road master dedicates his time to an afterschool class for children and teens, the fire service overcomes the big and small fears of the city’s inhabitants, the police pursue grave robbers. A Syrian ship in the port of Torre Annunziata unloads Ukrainian grain. The land around the gulf is a colossal time machine.

“I shot and lived within sight of Vesuvius for three years”, Rosi explains, “on the trail of history, excavating time and what remains of everyday life. I gather stories in the voices of the people who share them, I stare at the clouds and at the smoke at the Phlegraean Fields. When I shoot, I welcome surprising encounters, places and the realities of certain situations. The challenge in storytelling is about harmonising with every shot as the stories come to life. Time in the film is based on faith in that harmony. I shot in black and white, I observed in black and white. As we filmed, between the sea, the sky and Vesuvius, I found a new archive of life and possibilities”.

The only documentary-maker to have won both the Golden Lion in Venice and the Golden Bear in Berlin – respectively with Sacro GRA [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile] in 2013 and Fire at Sea [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile] in 2016, which also earned him an Oscar nomination and a Best Documentary Prize at the European Film Awards – Gianfranco Rosi is returning to the festival where he made his debut in 2008 in the Orizzonti line-up with his first feature film Below Sea Level [+see also:
film review
film profile] (crowned Best Documentary), before continuing almost all of his artistic journey here: he competed in the Orizzonti section again with El sicario - Room 164 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in 2010 and he was selected for the main competition with Sacro GRA and yet again with Notturno [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile] in 2020, the latter of which also represented Italy at the Oscars as Best International Film. 

As always, the film’s photography comes courtesy of Rosi himself, while editing was entrusted to Fabrizio Federico, who also worked with the director on In viaggio [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile] and Notturno. Music, meanwhile, comes from the British multi-instrumentalist Daniel Blumberg, who scooped an Oscar this year for his original score in The Brutalist [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile].

Below the Clouds was produced by Rosi’s production company 21Uno Film, in league with Donatella Palermo for Stemal Entertainment (who also produced In viaggio, Notturno and Fire at Sea) and RAI Cinema, in association with Richard Copans and Serge Lalou for French firm Les Films d’Ici and Arte France Cinéma, and with support from the Italian Ministry of Culture’s Film and Audiovisual Department. The film will be distributed in Italian cinemas by 01 Distribution from 18 September, while world sales are entrusted to German outfit The Match Factory.

(Translated from Italian)