PRODUCTIONS: VAJONT 1963: THE COURAGE TO SURVIVE

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Andrea Prandstraller & Michele Barca

Venicefilm Production

52'

HD

The story of the tragedy of the Vajont is so well known all around the world that just few words are needed to recount it.
It is 22:39, 9th October 1963: a landslide of 250 millions cubic meters leaves from Toc mountain and plunged in the artificial lake created by the Vajont dike. The wave generated by the impact is more than 100 meters high: it jumps over the dike and in a few minutes it falls down on the village of Longarone, which is situated just at the feet of the dike, destroying it. Almost 2000 people go from sleeping to death in few seconds.
Considered an immense “natural catastrophe” for years, thanks to courageous journalists the Vajont slaughter turned out as what really was: the tragic epilogue of a wrong operation which has been followed for years to protect economical and political interests.
This huge dike, “the greatest dike in the world”, completed in autumn 1960, would have never been constructed here, as the Toc is a rotten mountain, something the valley inhabitants already knew. In fact, the word “toc” means “piece” in the dialect spoken in the valley.
But beyond responsibilities and mistakes, beyond the cynical economic calculation perpetrated on the backs of hundreds of innocents, images of the drama and testimony of the few survivors remain, 45 years after the Vajont tragedy.