Two best friends set out to reach great heights in Irene Dionisio ’s latest feature and the shine resonates with a sense of grasping one’s dreams and making them come true. Filled with considerable emotional strength and simple tenderness, the energy from female friendships cannot be denied. In Idda , the idea to get to the top is only further justified through the universal experience of loss and trying to find a way to the light.

This touching film carries a dreamlike quality. Wrapping the idea of memory, pain, and friendship together, Idda gives the audience a chance to feel so much. Dionisio has created something purely special in such a stunning and romantic portrayal of the connection and separation between two best friends as they embody what it truly means to regret, block out the world, and forget all that once has been.

Friends since childhood, Adele ( Tecla Insolia ) and Sofia ( Romana Maggiora Vergano ) reunite after years apart. Now in their 30s, the two decide to fulfill the dream they once shared: climb to the summit of Mount Etna. This endeavour continues to be more and more dangerous as their journey continues. As the pair first meet, their adventure appears to have more secrecy involved than one may have originally expected.

What starts as a long-awaited friendly encounter in the airport slowly changes pace. Meeting a tourist by the name of Florian ( Mati Galey ) at a festival, sitting down for a round of drinks, they then find themselves sleeping outdoors overnight. The next day, which was supposed to be their departure for this adventure, Adele and Sofia are running late, thus allowing some tension between them to come to the surface. This altercation proves intriguing.

Their journey finally begins. Heading up the mountain via train, they break to visit a cottage cafe. In this development, it seems as though many of the people who come into contact with Adele and Sofia remember them from their younger years. Here is where Idda focuses on recalling the magic of their youth. But then, just as audiences are reminded of how long the two have been friends, a mysterious and alluring man appears. An influential moment in their adventure arrives when they come into contact with someone whom they refer to as ‘the mountain man,’ Salvatore ( Guiseppe De Domenico ).

He becomes not only a potential love interest, but a male saviour in dangerous situations. However, it is more specifically the journey that Adele goes on that carries the film to fruition and holds us hostage in our emotions. As the pair turns into a threesome, bitter confrontations cause a rift. Salvatore eventually leaves when the volcano begins to rumble. In the final stretches up the mountain, up Idda, Adele and Sofia separate. Carrying on alone, Adele feels what it is like to embark on a childhood dream without the best friend who was there to create it with her. She finds herself haunted by the thought of what could have been had she turned back and brought Sofia to the peak with her.

Introduced into the world of Idda through an almost hazy view of the most delicate and beautiful volcano, vintage-style cinematography helps build the world. The haze evokes the sentiment that “a nymph came here to give birth”¦that’s why Idda is female,” as one hears upon the journey. And in the volcano’s creation, so arises a world for this story to be told. Idda brings us all the more closer to what it could be like to experience the most painful of griefs, and not know how to deal with it until the bitter end.

Co-writers Dionisio and Marco Borromei find a path into the internal struggles between two lifelong friends. Beginning with lore that comes from a childhood endeavour — climbing to the top of Idda to hear her magical breathing — and taking it deeper into the all-too-real struggle between female friends, the film shows that no matter what type of friendship two people have, an underlying issue often comes to the surface.

Right from the beginning, this magic and confusion is created in Adele’s world as Idda insinuates that things are not entirely what they seem. The pair tend to find themselves framed in reflection or through glass, hinting at the loss of reality. Reflected as well in the framing, the girls are painted in a different light. This hints of the way in which we hide and are hidden in the world. Mysterious as the portrait of friendship is, Dionisio knows entirely what she has planned to reveal and hide from the audience. As Adele loses her grip on reality, the audience is completely captured in where the two will go next, and uncovering what is real and what is an illusion.

Bringing the power to the forefront, Vergano and Insolia are complete powerhouses in their roles. From the innocence and silence behind Adele’s desires to the ferociousness of Sofia’s femininity, there is no challenge the pair cannot tackle. Not only do both actors bring their characters to life, their chemistry works hand in hand to represent such a touching and authentic female friendship bond.

Idda remarks the idea of friendship and memory through the portrait and idea of a volcano itself. Differences between the pair — Sofia’s uncomplicated ease and Adele’s feelings of resentment — become encapsulated through the eruption of emotion, which links emotional outbursts to the volatility of the volcano that the friends set out to climb.

It remains touching to see accurate representations of the bond and estrangement between two female friends. For a sophomore feature, Dionisio’s honest and thoughtful Idda is truly remarkable and honourable. In a beautiful relationship, viewers get to witness the love, pain, and downfall of Adele and Sofia, all while captured amidst the ruptures of a volcano. Reflecting upon nature and the bond between two females, so little can tell so much.

Idda premiered at TIFF 2026 on Sept. 11. It screens again Sept. 12 and 18.

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