The documentary “Restaurare il cielo” (Restoring Heaven) tells the story of the epochal restoration of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. It shows the work of a group of Italian restorers that has been working on the recovery and the protection of the Church, a monument enshrined as a World Human Heritage site. The documentary will be screened at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, 5 October at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque. The event is organised by the Italian Cultural Institute in Tel Aviv in partnership with the Cinematheque and the Piacenti Company, the restoration project leader. Tommaso Santi, the director of the documentary, will be present at the screening. He commented: “We don’t only tell the story of the restoration work and the context in which it is carried out. The beauty of this place goes well beyond that: it bears witness to an outstanding harmony, which becomes paradoxical seeing that the centuries-old conflict between different churches had made it very difficult to agree on the restoration. None of the people working there has the arrogance or conceit of thinking they are making history but they are all thankful for having taken part in this project, which goes well beyond their economic compensation.”
This important project, which involves 60 companies and 170 restorers – mostly Italians who moved to Bethlehem in order to fully exploit complex technologies, research options and a broad range of professions – has solved the problem of the infiltration of water, cleaned and restored the mosaics, after analysing and mapping more than 1.6 million tesserae, and has led to the discovery of an angel, undisclosed up to now, under the plasterwork. The restoration work paves the way for a large number of discoveries expected from the studies currently underway.
