puglia.exe
A man returns to his hometown in southern Italy.
A vanished mother. A past in decay.
V. returns after many years to his hometown in southern Italy. The search for his mother — ill for some time and apparently vanished — brings him back to places, people and sensations from his past, now crumbling.
Puglia is one of the most filmed regions in Italy — and one of the least understood. Most films use it as a backdrop: the light, the architecture, the food. We wanted to use it as a wound.
The south carries a specific kind of grief. Not dramatic, not loud — just the slow erosion of a place. Villages losing their last inhabitants. Children who left and didn't come back.
This film grew out of a very personal question: what do you owe the place you're from? And what happens when that place starts to disappear while you're looking the other way?
V. returns after many years to his hometown in southern Italy. The search for his mother — ill for some time and apparently vanished — brings him back to places, people and sensations from his past, now crumbling.