The Fifth Siren: Water
FILL Productions (IT/UK 2021)
22 min Episode 1 of 6
When the high tide reaches Venice, four sirens are sounded to warn the population of the incoming danger. Each one of them represents a growing level of emergency, the level of the rising water. Yet there is no sound after the last siren. In 2019, when the storm hit the city, nothing could have prepared Venetians for the level of destruction it was going to bring.
On the 13th of November 2019 an exceptionally high tide hits Venice, creating damage the city has not seen before. People’s homes and shops are destroyed, the power cuts off and the city plunges into a dark, desperate night, trying to rescue what it can. Could this have been foreseen? Are weather anomalies really an exception, or perhaps just something that’s going to happen more and more often? As the world stands watching, we wonder: is this only a cautionary tale for Venice, or for the world?