Ecce Mole
Ecce Mole
Film by Heinz Emigholz
I 2025, 28 min
Two Buildings by Alessandro Antonelli (1798 - 1888).
World premiere
New York Film Festival, 2025
Director
Heinz Emigholz
Cinematography and Editing
Heinz Emigholz, Till Beckmann
Original Sound Recording
Ueli Etter
Music
Kreidler
Sound Design and Mix
Christian Obermeier, Jochen Jezussek
Postproduction and VFX
Till Beckmann
Producers
Heinz Emigholz, Mark Peranson
Production
Heinz Emigholz Filmproduktion, Museo Nazionale del Cinema Torino
Funded by
Mole Antonelliana, Museo Nazionale del Cinema Torino, Präsident: Enzo Ghigo, Vizepräsident: Gabriele Molinari, Vorstand: Allessandro Bollo, Paolo del Brocco, Elisa Giordano, Direktor: Carlo Chatrian, Fetta di Polenta: Franco Noero
Thanks to
The filming at La Mole took place in May 2025 when the exhibition The Art of James Cameron (February-August 2025) was in place. A special thanks goes to Avatar Alliance Foundation, to Kim Butts and Maria Wilhelm, and to the Cinémathèque Française, producers of the exhibition
Synopsis
Photography and beyond – Part 36.
“Earlier I walked past the Mole Antonelliana, perhaps the most brilliant work of architecture ever built - strangely, it has no name - as a result of an absolute drive into the heights - it recalls nothing so much as my Zarathustra. I baptized it Ecce homo and in that spirit placed an enormous free space around it.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, 1888
Part 36 in Heinz Emigholz’s Photography and beyond series, ECCE MOLE contrasts two buildings designed by Italian architect Alessandro Antonelli (1798–1888) in Turin, located 500m apart: the private residence Casa Scaccabarozzi, more commonly known as the Fetta di Polenta (1840), and the Mole Antonelliana (1889). The Mole was initially intended to serve as a synagogue but was acquired by the city before its completion and became a monument to national unity, and ultimately the symbol of Turin. Dominating the city’s skyline, it remains the tallest unreinforced brick building in the world at 167.5m. Since 2000 the Mole has housed the National Museum of Cinema (Museo Nazionale del Cinema).
ECCE MOLE is a concise and mysterious study of opposites: public and private; interior and exterior; up and down; reality and cinema; heaven and hell. It is the first of five short films commissioned by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema on the occasion of its 25th anniversary in the building. The shooting of the film took place in May 2025.
Stills:
