Idda

Drama

Programme: Platform
Year: 2026
Runtime: 89 min
Country: Italy
Language: Italian
Premiere: World Premiere

Adele and Sofia, childhood friends now in their thirties, reunite after years apart to fulfill a dream they once shared: reaching the summit of Mount Etna. But something feels off, and a bitter confrontation breaks out, opening old wounds and unveiling deeply buried secrets. They separate just as the volcano begins to tremble. Adele presses on alone, haunted by the wish that she had turned back and reached the crater together with Sofia to listen to the mountain’s magical breathing.

From the TIFF programme

When two childhood friends meet after years to fulfill the broken promise of climbing Mount Etna, Adele and Sofia realize that like the mountain, old wounds loom over everything.

In director Irene Dionisio’s simmering and sensual Idda, a physical act becomes imbued with emotional magnitude. A children's dance teacher, Sofia (Romana Maggiora Vergano), returns to her hometown to meet her childhood friend Adele (Tecla Insolia), who works as a photographer and tends to her father's shop. After years of aspiration, the pair plan to finally climb Mount Etna, an active volcano on the Eastern Coast of Sicily.

As Sofia enjoys the seemingly uncomplicated ease associated with the reunion, Adele quietly occludes her own feelings of resentment, until they have no other outlet but to erupt. As the pair make their way up the mountainside, both aided and impeded by a veritable mountain man (Giuseppe De Domenico), the physical strain pales in comparison to the emotional weight they carry as they navigate the winding terrain. In this languidly mysterious portrait anchored by ubiquitous fears about the perils of change, secrets of the past and the present bubble up, culminating in a loss that neither woman could have imagined.

Following her 2016 debut Le ultime cose, Dionisio’s sophomore feature, which she co-penned alongside Marco Borromei, takes an epic approach to unearthing the packed layers of a stewing friendship. Cinematographer Gergely Pohárnok’s portentous camera acts as the perfect complement to Dionisio’s sublime style and singular voice, meandering through paths loaded with personal strife, confused tactility, and an undercurrent of divinity. The diffident performances pulse with the understated violence of the volcano on which they tread, a reminder of nature's immortalism and humanity's inevitable finality.

DOROTA LECH

Content advisory: mature themes, sexual content