Ciao, Paese
A vanishing village
About
Ciao, Paese is a story about a vanishing town and a landslide that becomes more than a catastrophe
Since the 2006 L’Aquila earthquake, the ground beneath Cavatassi has grown unstable. Despite millions spent in mitigation, the village faces irreversible decline. Homes are marked for demolition, and residents are forced to choose: stay and fight, or leave the place they’ve always called home.
Like many rural Italian towns, Cavatassi has been quietly disappearing — caught between the erosion of tradition and the shifting needs of modernity. But as old lives fracture, new ones arrive, reframing what it means to belong. Ciao, Paese becomes a conversation between endings and beginnings, memory and reinvention.
At its heart, the film asks: What makes a place home? Is it the land, or the stories we carry? Even as Cavatassi fades, its spirit endures — in memory, in resilience, and in the people still dreaming it back to life
THEMES
In an age of migration, climate crisis, and fractured realities, the idea of home is no longer fixed. As places disappear or transform, we’re forced to ask: What does it mean to belong?
The documentary explores this question through the story of a fading Italian village, where identity, memory, and place collide.
In Ciao, Paese home is not just a location, but a layered construct of history, emotion, and longing. The film moves beyond nostalgia to reflect on the illusion of permanence and the quiet power of reinvention.
memory
impermanence
belonging
Visual Language
Ciao, Paese is a reflective, character-driven documentary that blends observational and poetic styles, to explores themes through a visually immersive lens.
Through powerful visual symbolism and intimate portraits of the villagers, Ciao, Paese is less a story with resolution than a meditation on impermanence, a film that finds meaning in loss, and beauty in the fragility of life.
Support the Film
Ciao, Paese is currently in development.
We are raising funds to continue production in Italy.
Your support makes it possible
The team
Martina Coccia
Director/Producer
Kalin Steen
Director of Photography
Anna Russo //
Renato Coccia
Researchers/Executive Producers