Small Italian village builds giant mirror to end 83 days of darkness (10 Photos

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About 120 km (74.5 miles) northeast of Turin, Italy, lies a hamlet called Viganella. It’s a remote commune of a couple hundred German Buddhists situated at the bottom of a steep-sided Alpine valley, right up against the Swiss border. Every year from November 11th to February 2nd, the sun disappears for Viganella. To combat this, the mayor came up with a novel solution. Build a gigantic mirror on a nearby peak to reflect sunlight on Viganella’s main square below.

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The mirror measures 8 meters by 5 meters (26 x 16 ft) and cost approximately 100,000 euros to buid and install.

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In a documentary entitled, The Mirror (Lo Specchio), director David Christensen captures the process of installing the giant mirror and the project’s affect on the lives of the people in the village and the surrounding valley.