Black Parthenope

Winner Best Film - Heart Italian Film Fe

The Story

Naples, Nowadays.

In a city where life unfolds amidst a ceaseless clamor of people, beeping scooters, color and beauty, there is a place where silence and history cloak the visitors transporting their souls in a 3000 year-old journey: the vast underground city, where huge spaces alternate with impenetrable, claustrophobic dark caves, galleries and alleys.

Cécile Bonnet, young offspring of a family of French entrepreneurs, arrives in town for her fist big assignment: to oversee the construction of a series of mega-car parks in the tufa caverns. Helping Cécile is Yanis, her project manager/casual lover, Greta, her father's attractive assistant, and Neapolitan technical consultant Gianni.

A series of unexpected events, violent deaths, involving mysterious presences brings Cécile and her team trapped forty meters below surface, with no means to communicate with the outside world. With their very life at stake they sets off on a desperate journey to find a way out of that surreal world.

Director's Statement

I wanted to talk about the relationship between the individual and cultural identity, but on the other hand, I wanted to tell a story with an international outreach.

I am very attached to my city, and I love its "uniqueness" that makes it different from the rest of Italy, even from the rest of the world. It is a city full of charm and mystery. Set between fire and water, it’s the place where anything can happen. It is also home to the largest ancient underground city in the world: Napoli Sotterranea.

In Black Parthenope, Naples is not just a "location", it is a leading character that wraps, suffocates, embraces, bewitches, frightens and protects the other protagonists of the story. At 40 meters underground they lose the perception of time; the narrow corridors followed by sudden openings in huge caves create a strong contrast. The shadows awake inner fears and demons, the darkness at the end of tunnels becomes light and salvation: the characters end up running away from themselves.