Myth and Mercury (2025) is a new 35mm film co-commissioned by MAXXI and CAM—Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian and co-produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film and Hamburger Kunsthalle. On one hand, intergalactic particles or grains meeting a community’s fireworks—the explosions’ lights–momentary glows against the night sky. On the other hand, extracts from Gramsci’s life in prison, memories of a revolutionary thinker as he approaches death, alongside the inner workings of the planet, bubbling scenes, and volcanic land. While the film’s pace is slow, its stories carry millions of years, myths, stellar imagery, high-tech machinery, and also realities of life, especially in Sicily. Myth and Mercury’s ending segment offering a vision of scientific futures comes all of a sudden. Ultra-high energy neutrino detected in the Mediterranean, it has been declared. Records have been broken. Pulverised, even.
Myth and Mercury, 2025
35mm film, color, optical sound; 22 min.
Dimensions variable
Film still © Rosa Barba
Myth and Mercury, 2025 has been on display at the following locations:
Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, 2025
Myth and Mercury, 2025 has been screened at the following locations: