“And when, as time goes on, you would have discovered everything discoverable, your progress will be nothing but a gradual move away from humanity”: a Japanese geophysicist driven to understand – and tame – nature
through algorithms is invited to study Mount Etna, where the real story of a nuclear scientist vanished in 1938, and the presence of a woman deeply rooted in that wilderness, will lead him to question whether logic alone can contain the fullness of meaning.
_La Scomparsa_ is the mystical and mysterious debut film by young screenwriter and director Davide Palella (Locarno Academy 2022), written in collaboration with Martina Arrigoni. Through the age-old fascination with volcanoes and the imagery they evoke, the film aims to reconnect distant places and times—Italian and Japanese cultures and landscapes, 20th-century history with our own era, Eastern and Western traditions—without any trace of exoticism and with a profound spirit of reconciliation. WIth Nature. With Mistery.
The film was selected for the European-Asian Ties That Bind program 2025/26, for the Locarno Academy 2026, and received script development funding from the Italian Ministry of Culture.
YEAR
2026
WHAT
Debut film by Davide Palella
STATUS
in development
Directed by DAVIDE PALELLA
Produced by CHIARA GALLONI, IVAN OLGIATI
Written by DAVIDE PALELLA e MARTINA ARRIGONI
