IddaIdda, from director Irene Dionisio, is about a lot of things, including the active volcano atop Mount Etna. It’s also mostly about Adele, or Ita (Tecla Insolia), trying to climb a volcano for her photography project. Accompanying her is Sofia (Romana Maggiora Vergano), her estranged bff / ex-girlfriend, trying to make up for lost time. Halfway up the volcano, Sofia has a health scare and Ita calls hiking expert Salvatore (Giuseppe De Domenico).

The friendship I’m seeing in Idda is fraught, and she couldn’t have picked a better location than Mount Etna. Etna, from my research, had an explosion this year, and one can imagine the risks during that shoot. 

Idda‘s screenplay is mostly tolerable although it can rely strongly on tropes that come with ‘bff’ films. The same goes with the motifs, like Sofia temporarily disappearing on Ita, again. Like most estranged best friends, these two characters fight, and the lines during those argument scenes feel organic. But as one strips away those lines it’s just these two characters saying “you know what you are”?!

There’s also an autobiographical aspect to Idda that makes me hesitate against a harsher vein of film criticism. If anything, there’s a confidence in writing characters based on real life and exposing those characters’ unsympathetic aspects. I’m no prude, but not everyone is going to be a fan of that sex scene between them. But still, it’s a haunting film with great cinematography and a sound deisgn that feels like a hug.