2021

ARTER IS THE EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF THE FILM FERDINANDEA.

FERDINANDEA IS AN EXPERIMENTAL FICTION IMAGINED BY CLéMENT COGITORE ABOUT A HISTORICAL REALITY, SOURCE OF MANY UTOPIES AND SPECULATIONS: THE EMERGENCE IN THE 19th CENTURY OF AN ephemeral VOLCANO ISLAND.

“In June 1831, the eruption of a submarine volcano between Sicily and Tunisia, near Malta, caused a small island to emerge in the middle of the Sicilian Channel, which was named in honour of Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies. WHILE THE TROUBLED PHENOMENA THAT ACCOMPANIED THIS ERUPTION (RISE IN WATER TEMPERATURE, PERMANENT dawn… ) generated GREAT CONCERNS AND SUPERSTITions AMONG THE LOCAL POPULATIONS, THE ISLAND, MADE OF ASHES, THEREFORE FRAGILE AND friable, ATTITLED THE lust OF EUROPEAN SCIENTISTS AND POLITICIANS, ITALIAN, FRENCH AND BRITISH IN PARTICULAR, WHO ORGANIZED MANY EXPEDITIONS THERE. IT HAS BECOME A SOURCE OF CURIOSITY IN THE WHOLE OF EUROPE, BECOMING THE SUBJECT OF ALL imperial DESIRES DUE TO ITS STRATEGIC LOCATION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, THE ISLAND became A SCIENTIFIC, RELIGIOUS AND AESTHETIC FIELD OF EXPERIMENTATION, CRYSTALISING PASSIONATE CONFLICTS ABOUT ITS conquest, BEFORE submerging ONLY 63 DAYS AFTER ITS emergence!

STILL BELOW SEA LEVEL (8m), FERDINANDEA HAS BEEN SUBJECT TO SEISMIC ACTIVITY SINCE 2002, which COULD MAKE IT EMERGE AGAIN… Mixing SCIENTIFIC DATA AND BELIEFS, FACTS AND SPECULATIONS, CLéMENT COGITORE STARTS FROM THIS INCREDIBLE GEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PHENOMENON, TO IMAGINE AND explore THE POSSIBILITIES OF A NEW emerged LAND IN THE MEDITERRANEAN, AT THE CROSSWORDS OF THE ARAB AND EUROPEAN WORLDS. “