*_FOLLWOING TALK IN PRESENCE OF DIRECTOR PETER RIPPL_* Once a prosperous trading town thanks to mussel farming, Europe’s largest steelworks signs Taranto today. Miserable working conditions, enormous environmental pollution and an above-average high cancer rate are the constant companions of the inhabitants of the former Mediterranean paradise. For decades, the creeping decline is accepted, even played down and ignored by politicians and entrepreneurs as a side effect of the economic upswing. Work or health - the Tarantoans have no other choice. But the city does not give up. The "Settimana Santa", the solemn Holy Week in southern Italy, becomes a symbol of comfort, hope and struggle for a better life in Taranto. The Good Friday procession is rung in with a nocturnal funeral march: *_"A GRAVAME"_* – the burden. The Frankfurt-based filmmaker *PETER RIPPL* has accompanied the residents – the workers, the unemployed, housewives, fishermen, musicians – in the preparations for the Easter celebrations. In atmospheric black-and-white imagery, accompanied by moving music, individual fortunes and distant observations merge into an important document of its time, which gives the forgotten inhabitants of Taranto a voice.