The cinematic representation of the 2009 earthquake that devastated the city of L’Aquila and numerous towns in the ‘crater zone’1 highlights a heterogeneous strand of films that are difficult to define in quantitative or formal terms. This body of work spans various expressive modes — from auteur cinema to amateur footage, from mainstream distribution to self-produced works shared on digital platforms — and moves along an unstable axis where multiple documentary impulses coexist. What these filmic materials have in common is their origin in a context of emergency, whose protracted aftermath influenced narrative strategies, thematic choices, stylistic approaches, and several other aspects. As Andrea Sangiovanni has noted in a preliminary study,2 within this fragmented landscape of productions and stories, no codified characteristics can be discerned. Rather, tendencies and orientations can be identified that constitute an initial framework for observing and analysing how cinema portrays the consequences of a natural catastrophe on a specific area.