A fascinating theory based on the similarities between the Racconti del Filó and some of Lovecraft’s most disturbing novels such as The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
This idea was developed in one interesting mocumentary (H.P. Lovecraft – Ipotesi di un viaggio in Italia) and in a small and very nice movie called Road to L., backstage of the documentary.
Polesine is a strip of land in Southern Veneto about 100-km long and 18-km wide located between the Adige and the Po rivers. “Polesine” is a Venetian term and means “swamp”. Till a few decades ago it was an extremely poor and underdeveloped area.
Synopsis (IMDB):
1997: A student of folklore named Andrea Roberti hypothesizes the possible link between the horror literature of H.P. Lovecraft and the dark folk tales of the Po Delta, a mysterious and remote part of northern Italy. 2002: One of the directors of the film comes across a manuscript in Montecatini (Italy) which may have belonged to the American writer. This journal, dated 1926, describes travels in Italy through the Po Delta in search of inspiration in the form of local folk stories: the Filò Tales. 2004: A small, tough crew of international filmmakers is put together with the help of David, a New York actor, to make a documentary on the finding of the journal and the links between Lovecraft and the Po Delta. If the manuscript did belong to Lovecraft, it would be an extraordinary discovery.
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