PAGES OF NATURAL HISTORY

Pages of Natural History is a study of the landscape of northern Tuscany, between the Apennines and the Apuan Alps, following the traces left by time and by human presence, the rhythm of the seasons, the movement of light and shadow. The film unfolds over the course of a year in the provinces of Lucca, Pistoia and Massa Carrara: a harsh territory of woods, valleys, streams and rocky ridges, marked by depopulation, by the wounds of the Gothic Line and by a long tradition of marble and stone quarrying. Moving through these places, I gathered what remains of those who once lived there – photographs, letters, notebooks, newspaper clippings, home movies – documents that by now seem to belong to the landscape itself, apparitions surfacing among branches and ruins. The film was shot on a Mini DV camera with a sound recorder over the course of a year, and edited following the chronological order of the footage . At the outset, a book guided the exploration, Ernst Jünger's The Adventurous Heart, serving as an unusual travel guide.