
Searching for Thule
Written by Yannis Karpouzis and Alexander Strecker
Directed by Yannis Karpouzis
Logline
In her quest to solve the riddle of Europe, a passionate scholar reconstructs the journey of the ancient Greek sailor Pytheas from Marseille to the mysterious country of Thule.
Feature Essay
Duration: 74min
Greece / Iceland / Belgium
In Development
Production by Laika Productions
Co-producers: Firnindi-films, Harald House
Director of Photography: Giorgos Frentzos GSC
Producers: Marina Danezi, Friedrik Thor Friedrikson
Around 300 BCE, the remarkable adventurer Pytheas set out from the Greek colony of Marseille to explore the frozen, fabled, and terrifying lands of northern Europe. Pytheas’s voyage, beginning on the Mediterranean Sea and reaching towards Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, the Shetland Islands, and the Faroe Islands, is retraced through a collection of film archives, archaeological surveys, and fragments from ancient literature. Ultimately, the journey reaches the mythical land of Thule, at the end of the earth, on the black coasts of Iceland and the melting glaciers of Greenland and the North Pole. As we retrace this journey in the present through images of everyday life, landscapes, history, myths, and monuments, the complex patchwork called Europe unfolds before us. Threading this patchwork together is the desire for knowledge, exploration, and cultural exchange. This essay film delves into the search for European identity, the continent’s ancient heritage, and the meeting of the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean.
“On the map, the route Pytheas took forms an arc from the Mediterranean to Iceland and embraces a large part of the area we call Europe, both geographically and historico-culturally. The story of Pytheas’s ancient journey has as its central theme the interpretation of the physical world using science, experiment, and observation.” Yannis Karpouzis