Stefano Bessoni

In 1271, the Seventh Crusade has failed. During their retreat, the troops transport the remains of King Louis IX, the Holy King, across the peninsula. A world has ended, and five young people with nothing in common set out to find the location of the Holy Shroud, stolen by traitors at the French court. Their journey will take them from the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines to Thebes, where the sacred relic is hidden.

They say that in 1600s, long before the invention of photography, a scientist named Fumagalli, was obsessed with the idea of reproducing images. He discovered that by killing a victim and removing his eyeballs it was possible to reproduce on paper the last image imprinted on the person's retina. He named such tecnique "Thanatography". Today, the same kind of gruesome ritual and abominable crimes r

Kaspar is a young filmmaker willing to develop his projects in cinema. He passes his time drawing, writing and making up his own imaginary world, that day by day seems to be getting more and more real. He shares his thoughts with Helix, a young photographer interested in death and the capture of images, with Schulz, a doll maker who is obsessed by the theories about creation and dummies, and with Bertolt, a fellow filmmaker that never got over the failure of his first movie, destroyed by a short-sighted production team.

A young little orphan loses herself in the Woods of Vain Things. In her journey, she finds an old log cabin: it is soon revealed to be the dwelling of Gilbert, the prize-builder, victim of a strange spell.

Doctor Zacchìa is the headmaster of a medicine and natural science school, where official subjects together with unusual disciplines are taught, for example, thanatology, apocryphal zoology and taxidermic sculpture. Zacchìa usually rents out an old house to some of his students he selects with particular care, considering their nature and ambitions. Among these students, there are Tadeusz and Berenice, a young couple obsessed with spontaneous generation and the creation of a human being from nothing; Nataniele, a researcher of angels who is grappling with an apple coming from the same tree that originated the sin; Cassandra, a young victim of a peculiar case of apparent death; Giona, an artist who is fond of collecting objects and creating a wunderkammer; and Rebecca, an old toys restorer. Doctor Zacchìa Follows the students' inclinations with great attention, trying to support them in their interests. But the doctor is a keeping a secret!

Galgenlieder are, as Morgenstern himself says in a comment, the imaginary songs of a group of hung people, dangling from the gallows hill, a strategic place that allows them to see the truths that normally a distracted and "living" viewer wouldn't.