This is the story of the great Vajont which, as the journalist from Belluno Tina Merlin wrote, "lasted twenty years and was concluded in three minutes of apocalypse". Now this story has become a film with the direction of Renzo Martinelli. Vajont starts at the beginning of the construction of the dam, bringing up human responsibilities that were concealed behind the catastrophe.

At the basis of the book there is the book-enquiry "Sulla pelle viva" by Tina Merlin, the Unità journalist who had launched serious accusations at the time against SADE, the electric company who had designed and built the dam with money and support from the State.

Renzo Martinelli picked up the story that a few years ago was at the centre of the immense and touching theatre tale by Marco Paolini, giving a human and recognisable face to the protagonists: Tina Merlin is performed by Laura Morante, the people responsible for the project (Eng. Semenza and Eng. Biadene) are the French Michel Serrault and Daniel Auteuil and the building site manager is Leo Gullotta.

The movie was filmed in the Vajont valley where a piece of dam was built which was moved on rails for filming and then edited on computer. However, the most difficult part to film was the enormous wave and the consequent destruction of the towns that Martinelli has recreated alternating true images to digital ones. B.S.