Petrolia is the name with which the director’s grandmother, Giulia Mancassola, refers to Kuçovë, Albania: a former oil town now abandoned, marked by the remnants of industry and a sense of decay. Among ruins and forgotten infrastructures, three stories of young people intertwine, portraying a humanity suspended between abandonment, rebellion, play, and music, in search of their own identity. Oil becomes a metaphor for a burden weighing on the territory and those who inhabit it, a symbol of a vanished promise and a stagnant present. Through ethereal sounds and urban atmospheres, the film portrays a marginalized youth capable of transforming discomfort into resistance and decline into a form of imagination.

Giulia Mancassola is a director and art director, trained in Media Design and Multimedia Arts at NABA in Milan. Petrolia has been presented at major documentary film festivals, including DocLisboa and the Festival dei Popoli.