La Frequenza Fantasma / The Ghost Frequency

"La Frequenza Fantasma (The Ghost Frequency)" EXCERPT from Chiara Ambrosio on Vimeo.

“La Frequenza Fantasma (The Ghost Frequency)” is a feature film that paints a non-hierarchical portrait of a crumbling village nestled on the mountains of Calabria, in the south of Italy, balanced precariously between life and death.

Engaging with time as physical matter through a careful and protracted period of observation framed through the lens of an animator’s eye (keen on allowing for minute transformations to occur and unlock all kind of quiet epiphanies), this film attempts to uncover at once the layers of historical sediment that have accumulated in a particular space through time, and to reap new myths through a personal interpretation and direct encounter with place and narrative.

 

It is the story of a village, 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, the search for the sacred patterns of the quotidian within the rhythms of nature.

 

The physical presence of the body and the overwhelming power of a wild and untamed nature are the two forces which dominate all belief in this secluded and anachronistic stretch of land, where faith and superstition are the binding elements that help the continuation of identity and collective history. The survival of community relies on it. The few testimonies gathered in the film are the voices of the village’s guardians and have the power of an incantation, that grants survival and continuation to what would otherwise crumble into oblivion and loss.

 

The title of the film refers to the role that the telegraph, the radio, and the transmission of sound signals played in the studies of different dimensions and the otherworld, allowing to tune into frequencies that, although invisible to the eye, are nevertheless a fundamental aspect of our collective subconscious, following the understanding that sound, once released, will never disperse but will continue to haunt the ether, invisible and inaudible but an unquestionable trace of lapsed presence.

 

For more information about the film and the author please visit acuriousroom.com

For an interesting discussion about the ideas behind the film see Federico Campagna in Conversation with and Chiara Ambrosio Part I

“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, artist, author and professor of Fine Art at Ruskin School of Art, Oxford

"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, Film Curator, Whitechapel Gallery

"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, NYU

"The Ghost Frequency- You have to make the journey. You can't bring it home. Look back and it dissolves into light.

- Tony Grisoni, screenwriter and filmmaker