LA FREQUENZA FANTASMA paints a portrait of a crumbling village nestled on the mountains of Calabria, in the south of Italy. It is the story of a place suspended in time and space, a place of sounds, smells, and numberless thresholds where the memory of a mythical past and the present are inextricably intertwined. It is an investigation into the nature of collective and personal history, into the origin and preservation of memory – how it is etched and perpetrated, both in the minds of the people who still live there, and in that of the soil, the ruins, matter itself. It is the story of the relationship between animate and inanimate matter, and of how this relationship turns into the motor and purpose of existence – a search for the sacred patterns of the quotidian within the rhythms of nature.
“A seance, an eavesdropping, a mysterious bolero: LA FREQUENZA FANTASMA is a striking essay film that enshrines and expands the poetics of place, people and memory.” –Sukhdev Sandu, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
“A compelling, lyrical and beautifully realized portrait of people and place, of the universal need for home and roots and at the same time a precisely calibrated site-specific exploration, LA FREQUENZA FANTASMA marks the emergence of a bold new film essayist in Chiara Ambrosio.” –Gareth Evans, WHITECHAPEL GALLERY
“You may think that you do not know Verbicaro. Never set foot or imagined it. But you are wrong and The Ghost Frequency will prove it. This haunting epic poem of shadows and echoes will dream you every time it flickers inside a screen or whispers the ages under your approach. Don’t be shocked by your knowing, unsettled by the familiarity, because it is tuned to your recognition and the phantom of your returning.” -Brian Catling
“The Ghost Frequency- You have to make the journey. You can’t bring it home. Look back and it dissolves into light. – Tony Grisoni
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director Chiara Ambrosio and Sukhdev Sandu, writer, journalist and NYU professor