Tina Kakadelis
What is it about volcanoes that calls to people? Sara Dosa’s burning documentary, Fire of Love, told the story of two volcanologists who were as in love with each other as they were with volcanoes. At last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Pete Ohs’ simmering Charli XCX-led film, Erupcja, captured a relationship that’s also tied to the power and might of volcanoes. While the couple in Fire of Love could be enamored with a new volcano every week, the women in Erupcja felt Mount Etna was reacting to them. At the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, Irene Dionisio’s Idda had its world premiere and featured two childhood friends with another kinship connection tied to Mount Etna.
Many years ago, friends Adele (Tecla Insolia) and Sofia (Romana Maggiora Vergano) had promised one another they would one day climb Mount Etna. For reasons unbeknownst to the viewer at the beginning, that never happened. In the present day, Sofia has traveled back to their hometown to finally make good on that oath between friends. At first, it’s like no time has passed at all. The two trade friendly barbs, poke fun at one another, and enjoy the fact that they’re reunited for however long it may be. As they begin their summit, the shine wears off and the years begin to weigh them down.
Director Dionisio explained that this film was deeply personal to her. Idda is ultimately a story of loss. Not just in relation to friends, but to life and the paths not taken or promises broken. Unspoken animosity exists between the friends because one left and one stayed. Depending on one’s perspective, it could be brave to stay or brave to go. It’s where a person is standing, though, that makes sense of their choice. Sofia moved and Adele is part of what she left behind. Maybe it started only physically at first, but distance makes things splinter. Phone calls get missed, texts go unreturned, and the crack becomes a chasm.
Cultural legend has it that Mount Etna is a living, breathing being, a woman, to be specific. Part of the reason the friends want to get all the way to the top is to hear her breathing. Idda’s sound design gives the audience that impression from the very first moment of the film, even if they know nothing of this story of Mount Etna. She acts as the third lead character, a looming presence of everything that lies between the two women. Of what has been said and what is desperately trying to be pushed down for the sake of making this relationship last in some way. It’s hard to grow up differently from someone who knows you so well. Some relationships can morph and regrow in new ways based on how the people have changed, but some cannot. Some stay symbolically as this formidable mountain of energy that will forever linger.
Idda wouldn’t be classified as wholly experimental, but it does dip its toes into that water toward the end. Things start to feel murky and unstable, but upon further reflection, it’s Dionisio’s way of putting the audience in the shoes of Adele. She is who the viewer meets first, so we’re more willing to see her perspective on things. As the movie approaches its ending, Idda becomes more like a feeling or experience than a traditional narrative structure. That’s there for much of the film, but with the way things have progressed between the friends, things inevitably become difficult to explain if you aren’t the one in the middle of their lives. It’s a moment when Idda becomes personal in an almost impenetrable, but not inaccessible, way. In the same way you and I cannot explain the depths of our closest friendships to a stranger, neither can Dionisio. Nor does she need to. In these experimental moments, Idda acts like a mirror pointed toward relationships beyond the one featured.
All friendships ebb and flow based on a multitude of factors. Time, distance, action, inaction, mood. There’s a fragility to friendships that doesn’t exist in other types of relationships. A manner of cultivation and protection that develops into the rarity of companionship. Idda, in the Sicilian dialect of Italian, is a term of endearment and wonder specifically related to Mount Etna. It is also the pronoun for “she/her.” There is love, awe, and femininity bubbling through all of Idda, waiting for the moment it’s able to fully let loose.
