June 2002. Roberto Leggio, an Italian journalist, rummages through the antique stalls of a market in Montecatini and buys a book by Émile Zola. Inside he finds a yellowing envelope containing forty odd pages of notes in English, handwritten in blue ink and accompanied by numerous drawings.

The manuscript is forgotten for several weeks. Then curiosity gets the better of Leggio, and it pays off. Within the pages is a postcard of Venice from the 1920s signed “Granpa Theo”. This is one of the most common pseudonyms used by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft in signing the hundred-thousand-plus letters written in the course of his life (Providence, 1890 – 1937).

Leggio recognizes the signature and decides to refer the matter to an expert, Sebastiano Fusco, along with his colleague, journalist and film-maker Federico Greco. The journal is dated 1926 and would fit into an ambiguous period in the writer’s life despite biographers being convinced that Lovecraft never ventured beyond the American continent.

However, initial analysis of style and calligraphy would seem to affirm the attribution of the manuscript to Lovecraft.

Hence the birth of the documentary H.P.Lovecraft – Hypothesis of a Journey in Italy, by Greco and Leggio, (shown on Studio Universal) researched and filmed during the summer of 2004. It is a voyage on the tracks of the journal, retracing the steps of the writer in nothern Italy.

The result is surprising. If, as it would indeed appear, the manuscript was written by Lovecraft, it is also possible that the writer was inspired by his extraordinary experience to write some of his most famous tales, in particular The Shadow over Innsmouth and Call of Cthulhu. In fact, during these travels the writer would have come to know the so-called “Filò Tales”, the age-old story-telling tradition popular among the people of the Po area, in which the protagonists are terrorized by aquatic beings that dwell in the lost canals and villages of one of Italy’s most mysterious regions.

Equally controversial and disturbing are the consequences of the research. During the filming, the crew came across a number of events that bordered on the unbelievable. It was not possible – or permitted – to include them in the short documentary, yet Minerva Pictures and Digital Desk soon became convinced of the opportunity of making them the basis for a feature film.

ROAD TO L. is the fascinating, and disturbing, chronicle of those 11 days.