Antarctica (1988): a ship must escape from the grip of the ice to reach Terra Nova Bay. The Italian icebreaker Laura Bassi, in 2023, follows the same route and reaches the southernmost point on the planet ever reached by a ship. International Title TERRA NOVA, The Land of Long Shadows Year of production 2023 Length 53' CountryItaly Shooting Format Digital Aspect Ratio 1.85:1 Dialogue Italian Director Lorenzo Pallotta Production Company Morgana Production, Limbo Film, The Piranesi Experience in associate production with Il Saggiatore and Reel One Producers Claudio Esposito, Stefano Chiavarini Executive Producers Lorenzo Pallotta, Francesco Scura, Chiara Bellini Editors Massimo Da Re, Marco Capozzi, Lorenzo Pallotta Sound Design Tommaso Barbaro Sound Editing and Mix Agit Utlu, Luca Canzano Sound post-Production Fullcode Music freddy Murphy, Chiara Lee Festival selections Torino Film Festival 2023, Italy - World Premiere Trento Film Festival 2024, Italy UnArchive Found Footage Fest 2024, Italy Nuovi Mondi Film Festival 2024, Italy Edera Film Festival 2024, Italy - Special Mention Faito Doc Festival 2024, Italy Ariano International Film Festival 2024, Italy Lucania Film Festival 2024, Italy Archivio Aperto 2024, Italy Festival Mente Locale - Visioni sul territorio 2024, Italy International Festival of Winter Cinema 2025, Canada
Director's Statement We chose to tell the story of this extreme journey from archival material. During the 1988 Antarctic research expedition, the Italian ship was forced to reverse course due to the consistent presence of ice. In 2023, the icebreaker Laura Bassi retraces the same route, this time overcoming various challenges. Archival material is the backbone of the film. This approach to two different types of material allowed us to experiment with various formats and sounds, amplifying the visual and aural aspects to offer the viewer a deeply emotional experience in a remote, dangerous, and as yet little explored place. We want to engage the viewer in the concept of "evolutionary tension" intrinsic to the journey and the route. At the heart of this epic undertaking, we deliberately kept the concept of the impossibility of mastering nature, creating moments when the crew loses signal, control and reference points. We carefully curated the sound and visual aspect to immerse the room and the individual viewer inside a "simulator." All this to be on board with the crew during the most critical moments. The use of a Handycam camera from the 1990s was chosen to bring the two distinct historical periods, 1988 and 2023, as close as possible. This approach allows the narrative to navigate through radio communications, making the viewer feel as if he or she were inside a spaceship. The goal of this whole process is to return the human being to a primal state of discovery, endurance and fear.
