Written and directed by Nicola Baratto and Yiannis Mouravas – 16.59 min
Film soundtrack in collaboration with Francesco G. Gagliardi
Voice over by Danae Io
A Vanishing Column Floats is a film inspired by the quest for the legendary third column of San Marco, a pillar lost in the waters facing the square upon its arrival from the Eastern Mediterranean, somewhere in the 12th century. Composed as a visual poem, the film contemplates the possible existence of the third column through the material substances of the city-island. The cinematic eye wanders upon stones and waters –symbols of Venetian memory– and imagines the lost pillar in a reverie between the states of being conscious and unconscious, between the image seen and the image unseen, between banal sights and eternal mystery.
‘Under the Lion stretch out subterranean paradoxes, a trembling sun appearing only once a year, a catacomb bar, an ineffable darkness accompanied by the shading of rust and dust, and so many things to do that Time is not enough for humans to look at one another.
We see nothing, except what is so unimportant to see, and Time, in its irresistible and ceaseless flow, carries along on its flood all created things and drowns them in the depths of obscurity.’