Explorations

How deep is the sea in a bathyscaphe

The director tells us how he made the film about the dive ship that touched the Mariana abyss. History of Made in Italy, excellence, industry, poetry between Italia and the USA

by Massimiliano Finazzer Flory

10 March 2026

Operazione Batiscafo Trieste - Il trailer

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

On 2 May 1974 at 11:12 p.m., an anonymous phone call to the Trieste fire brigade reports a fire at 14 Via San Maurizio. When the fire brigade broke down the warehouse door, amid smoke and flames they found blackened and now destroyed papers and documents belonging to Diego de Henriquez. With them, his charred, lifeless body. There was no autopsy. The causes of the fire are not fully clarified. On his grave de Henriquez wanted to engrave a motto before his death: 'Give me your sword, friend, I will guard it for you. Do not fight: only with love will you conquer peace'. But who was Diego de Henriquez?

Let us take a step back. We are on 16 June 1948. Jacques Piccard, son of Auguste, writes to de Henriquez: 'You have often spoken to me of your plans to create a better and more peaceful world, to make better use of the goodwill so numerous on Earth. How could I not think of Trieste, a free territory, as an ideal centre to expand a beneficial culture and ideology?".

Operazione Batiscafo Trieste - Il trailer

Let us take a step forward. It is 23 January 1960 at 8.23 am. A bathyscaphe with an American flag designed and almost entirely built in Italia dives. We are in the Mariana Trench, Pacific Ocean. It touches the seabed: 10,916 metres. It is a world record. The bathyscaphe is called the "Trieste". It has since been in Washington at the National Museum of the United States Navy.

But it is also an Italian story. Inspired by Diego de Henriquez, desired by Auguste Piccard and 'piloted' by his son Jacques together with Don Walsh. An American story that conquered the cover of 'Life': almost seven million readers. In reality, it was all born from the mind of a Swiss scientist, Auguste, known to the chronicle as the first human being to reach the stratosphere in a balloon on 27 May 1931 at 15,871 metres. In short, the Piccards know a thing or two about records. Built in 1953 in Italia for scientific and pacific purposes, it involved various Italian excellences: the spherical cabin designed by Auguste Piccard cast by Acciaierie di Terni, the float built in the CRDA shipyards in Trieste and Monfalcone, the assembly in the Castellammare di Stabia shipyards.

In the summer of 1957, diving began with the United States Navy. The record dive was No. 69 on 23 January 1960 with the 10,916-metre Mariana Trench. Jacques Piccard told of his meeting in Trieste and how de Henriquez had asked for two bathyscaphe to be built: a real one for diving and a faithful copy that was to go to his museum. But the bathyscaphe was ceded in 1958 to the US Navy, which modified it for military research purposes as part of a Cold War project.

Let us stop here. Even with the cinema, it is possible to immerse oneself and become an explorer to discover how deep is the sea that also invites us and disquiets us to listen to a freedom of thought that always by perilous waters should reach 'the glorious harbour'. How deep is the sea as a living organism of which we are a part, seems to be a literary quotation from Jules Verne here read through the eyes of Auguste Piccard. Thus 'operation bathyscaphe Trieste' becomes arithmetic: more science, more technique, more art. In 1953, after the explorations on Capri and Ponza, the original bathyscaphe Trieste was to be permanently exhibited in the War for Peace Museum. The model is now there with a perfect reconstruction.

We filmed his new life, assembled with the faces of the witnesses of the time, returning to the dive sites to revive emotions with the pioneers of then and now. But there is another story in this story that the docufilm reveals and suggests. It is revealed here by the son and grandson of Jaques and Auguste Piccard.

Always committed to environmental issues, Bertrand lets us know that the bathyscaphe 'Trieste' saved the planet. Poetically. Scientifically. Politically. We discover from his words directions of a compass we need. "I remember when my father told me about the bathyscaphe's last objective, to observe whether there was life in the deepest pits because at the time governments wanted to abandon their radioactive waste because they thought the deep pits were deserted. When my father and Don Walsh saw a fish it showed that there was life and vertical currents coming from the surface to bring oxygen into the deeper pits that was proof that the toxic waste down there would pollute the whole ocean.

A docufilm, I believe, must take into account memories and imagination, testimonies and poems by enhancing the flashback and flashfoward in an editing idea that offers the viewer an unprecedented unity of scene. "Operazione Batiscafo Trieste" as director gave me the opportunity to play on the chronicle of time by throwing in the digital era and contemporary photography, the black and white of history with archive material from the Istituto Luce. The resulting mix is the human in us. We are made of the past and yet dreamers live in it. Featuring for the first time the children of pilots Bertrand Piccard and Kelly Walsh, the film traces the birth of the project, the challenges and the human significance of an enterprise that conquered the world, even making it onto the cover of Life.

Sixty-six years after that descent into the abyss, the docufilm follows the faithful reconstruction of the bathyscaphe Trieste, symbolically bringing it 'home', to the museum named after Diego de Henriquez in a close comparison with the record-breaking bathyscaphe filmed and narrated in Washington at the US Navy's National Museum. It is not just the tale of a scientific record, but the story of a visionary dream: to explore the unknown by offering a message of knowledge. The bathyscaphe Trieste is now here, wanted by the City of Trieste, to show the world that the name of that enterprise remains synonymous with perseverance, courage and faith in the future.

Director of the film 'Operation Bathyscaphe Trieste'