attempting to escape death by dancing

Directed by Carmine Lo Regio

di come i vivi tentarono, danzando, di sottrarsi alla morte is an experimental documentary exploring traditional dances of Southern Italy as collective acts of resistance against death. Through the manipulation and progressive digital degradation of archival footage, accompanied by a grotesque and unsettling soundscape, the film brings Elias Canetti's reflections on the refusal to accept death into dialogue with Ernesto de Martino's studies on magic and the crisis of presence. The movement of bodies becomes a ritual attempt to suspend the irreversibility of time, an obstinate and ultimately futile revolt against the dissolution of existence.