Lassù (Up There) (2022)

Up there, on the very top of a barren mountain that towers above the city of Palermo, a strange building stands out against the sky: it's an old military observatory which has now been transformed into a very unique temple, entirely decorated with naïve mosaics. Nino, alias Isravele, a 60 years old bricklayer, has been living there alone for more than twenty years. He goes up and down every day with a backpack loaded with pebbles and concrete. He carries his load from beneath to the heights of the mountain, and thus purifies it. He transforms neglect into beauty, through a constant work that he calls prayer. Because, he says, anything that isn't done for personal interest is a prayer. This is the story of a bricklayer from the suburbs that one day became a prophet, the story of a man who got out of the world to reveal, from up there, a different, vaster horizon, a new road for a stranded humanity, a path where man, divinity and nature return to be one. Because, as he says, quoting Revelation: "the time has come to destroy those who destroy the earth".