The magical thing about running Stuck in Iceland Travel Magazine is connecting with people who have chosen my country as the venue for extraordinary (and sometimes eccentric) projects! The most exotic thing that I have encountered in the nine years running the magazine is the documentary “Finding Thule” by Italian filmmaker Sofia Rovati. “Finding Thule” is all about documenting the quest of Italian mathematician and explorer Giancarlo Gianazza. Mr. Gianazza believes that Dante’s Divine Comedy contains clues about the location of the Holy Grail. Those alleged clues have led him to scour the Icelandic highlands searching for the Holy Grail in Iceland. You will forgive me for being a skeptic, but there is no denying that this quest is fascinating. It reminds me of the abortive search for the Dutch treasure ship Het Wapen van Amsterdam which was all over the news when I was a kid in the eighties.
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Finding Thule is coming out before the end of 2021
I interviewed Sofia in 2015 about the documentary and the quest for the Holy Grail. Back then, the filmmakers were promoting their successful Kickstarter fundraising project. I did not hear more about the project, and time flew by. But recently, Kickstarter backers got a message from Sofia where she describes how their documentary ballooned in complexity and scope. But after four additional tours to Iceland after their original trip filming the search, they have now announced that they are currently working through the resulting 400+ hours of footage. Sofia and Alex anticipate that the documentary “Finding Thule” will be released before the end of 2021.
I caught up with Sofia Rovati to ask her about the documentary.
Hey Sofia, so great to speak to you again. It sounds like the past 6 years have been really tough for you guys. The documentary is a much bigger project than you anticipated. How are you holding up?
It’s great to speak to you again Jon! Yes, 6 years since the Kickstarter campaign and 7 years since our first trip to Iceland. Time flies!
The project has literally taken a life of its own. I would have never expected this to happen. This story has become part of who I am. I was laughing with someone the other day saying that some expressions that the characters use have become part of my daily vocabulary! This shows how big of an impact the project has had on my life. As well as how many times I have watched the footage!
To tell you the truth, there have been moments where I had to walk away from the project only to come back to it months later. The longest break I took from it was of 10 months straight – almost a year. That happened in 2018 after our last trip to Kerlingarfjoll.
It was the pandemic that really inspired me and motivated me to finish the story. As I said the project took a life of its own. Some crazy things have happened while we were shooting in Iceland, strange coincidences that had to be investigated further…and so I did. I feel like I went to Iceland to shoot a treasure hunt and in the end I became a treasure hunter myself!
You visited Iceland five times to film the search for the Holy Grail in Iceland and are working through 400+ hours of footage. What are the lessons of this project?
Many. Endurance and perseverance are among them. The value of having a “tribe”, a community of people around you who, although very different from each other, share the same dreams – a common goal. This is another one.
And then, the power of the mind – I’d say. Our mind and the projections of the mind. You know the story of Peter Pan: in order to fly, you must first believe that you can fly. This is the kind of power I am talking about.
Being able to follow Giancarlo and all the other characters for so many years in a row has given me tremendous insight into their minds. I started noticing a common desire that is innate in every human being – we want to know the unknown. Some more than others. Some are so thirsty for knowledge that they will embark on impossible quests in order to know the truth.
I imagine you have faced challenging conditions filming the search for the holy grail in Iceland. What was your hardest day like?
The hardest things and the most annoying ones too were the FLYES !! Hordes of flies, angry at us! The more we stayed the angrier they became. We had to go around with nets on our heads.
Some years were better than others. It depended on the weather. But yes, we haven’t complained about the weather as much as we complained about the damned flies!
So did the team discover anything that could be described as a significant archaeological find?
UUUUhh … You’ll have to watch the movie to discover this yourself!
If you were coming to Iceland just for your own enjoyment, what places would you visit?
The Fjords! Despite my many trips to Iceland I haven’t actually managed to do much sightseeing except from the Kjolur highlands, of course. But I am planning to travel to Iceland in a camper van for a month or so, maybe next year – to promote the movie maybe!
That’d be cool – imagine a van with a huge face of Giancarlo on it traveling all over Iceland. I’d have to include that in the movie!
