In the context of Friulian culture week (9-19 May 2024) edited by Friulian Philological Society, there Cineteca del Friuli presents in Pordenone, in collaboration with Cinemazerothree of the five documentaries collected on the DVD Vajont 60 – Documentaries 1961-1966published by the Cineteca on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the catastrophe which on 9 October 1963 caused the death of almost two thousand people following the landslide that detached from Mount Toc and fell into the Vajont dam reservoir, on the border between Friuli and Veneto.
The event, with free admission, is for Friday 10 May at 8.45pm at Cinemazero. The Vice President of the Philological Society for Western Friuli will participate in the evening Franco Colussi and, to introduce the vision to the public, Professor Carlo Gaberschekeditor of the booklet that accompanies the DVD, of which viewers will be able to pick up a free copy.
The projection begins with a short amateur film dating back to the summer of 1961 which shows a group of boy scouts arriving from Muggia to admire, now almost completed, “the tallest dam in the world”, as advertised by SADE, the electricity company that built the work.
The contrast could not be stronger with the following titles, two of the most important testimonies on the events following the disaster: The Vajont tragedy(1964) by the director Luigi Di Gianni And Vajont ’66 Of Antonio De Gregorio. Di Gianni, who was among the first to go there, documents the situation in the Longarone area with images of devastation. Above all, it collects the voices of some survivors and of the journalist Tina Merlin, who as correspondent for the province of Belluno for The Unity he had written several articles giving voice to the protests, in particular from the inhabitants of Erto and Casso, who opposed the construction of the dam. A clear denunciation of the responsibilities of SADE emerges, guilty of having first ignored the experts’ recommendations not to build in a geologically unstable area and then the signs of imminent danger.
Filmed three years later, De Gregorio’s documentary shows the continuing sense of desolation and temporariness in the shantytown of displaced people in Erto and Casso.
Vajont 60 contains two other notable documents: Vajont (Christmas 1963)also by Luigi Di Gianni, focused on the Fortogna cemetery, and an excerpt from A region is born (1964), portrait of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region directed by Ennio Lorenzini.
The DVD was created with the collaboration of Cineteca Foundation of Bologna and of Media library of the Veneto Regionthanks to the support of Friuli Venezia Giulia Region he was born in Ministry of Cultureunder the auspices of Vajont Foundation and with the patronage of Municipalities of Longarone, Erto and Casso, Vajont and Ponte delle Alpi.
May 8, 2024
The Cineteca del Friuli – Press office
