Article by Francesca Strangis

Translation by Giorgia Mazzù

Asleep on the grass, a man and a woman are awakened by the sound of screeching metallic noises. The man climbs a slight hill, driven by curiosity to see what lies beyond. On the other side, the world of technology: towering electric pylons and industrial plants dominate the view. The opening sequence of Terra Incognita (‘Unknown Land’) serves as a metaphor for the film itself, which explores the themes of energy supply and humanity’s survival on Earth through two opposing perspectives.

Art or science? Faith or reason? Nature or technology? Rural community or nuclear power plant? These are the questions the film presents, yet it deliberately avoids providing answers, allowing the viewer to interpret them. Because perhaps, even though the issue exists and must be acknowledged as such, there is no single solution to the energy conundrum: this is what fascinates director Enrico Masi, who, after years of research, offers two potential solutions that represent two contrasting views of the world. On one side, a neo-rural German family living in a remote area of the Italian Alps, disconnected from electricity and society, driven by the dream of creating an energy-independent community. On the other, just across the border, lies an experiment aimed at replicating the Sun’s energy on Earth through nuclear fusion.

The film unfolds through a near-violent alternation between two seemingly opposite planes yet deeply interconnected realms, bound by their shared humanity. The contrast is made stark, both visually —through the juxtaposition of the claustrophobic interiors of ultra-technological machines and the natural landscapes captured in cinemascope— and acoustically, with the deafening noises of factories contrasting with the soothing silence of nature. This binary structure is enriched by a third voice: a voice-over that, through a series of quotes, becomes almost an embodiment of Alexander von Humboldt, author of seminal texts on ecological tradition. He is entrusted with the task of ‘bridging’ the two realms in an oxymoron.

With a documentary that blends various registers and styles —from archival footage to interviews, interspersed with long naturalistic and abstract panoramas— Masi embarks on a highly ambitious journey that is, at times, difficult to decipher but undoubtedly thought-provoking for the audience. Ultimately, this is the very ‘terra incognita’ referenced in the title: the search for an energy solution, and thus the future of humanity itself. An unknown land that intrigues, but also unsettles and frightens.