Darren Aronofsky may be preparing to debut his buzzy crime novel adaptation "Caught Stealing" with Austin Butler, but the auteur also has produced another film based on a book coming soon: documentary "Underland." The film, which will premiere at Tribeca 2025, brings author Robert Macfarlane's nature book of the same name to the big screen.
"Underland" is billed as a "cinematic documentary that voyages into worlds rarely glimpsed by human eyes," mostly involving underground geological phenomenons. The logline reads: "Beginning in the shallow soils beneath an old ash tree, we travel alongside several 'astronauts of the underworld' into ancient sacred caves, flooded storm drains, melting glaciers, underwater burial chambers and a deep underground laboratory built to solve the mysteries of the Universe. ... We know so little of the world beneath our feet. To most it is a place only of fear and darkness, though to a brave few it is one of knowledge and wonder to be found nowhere else."
Sandra Hüller narrates the documentary, which is directed by Robert Petit. The feature is from production companies Sandbox Films, Protozoa Pictures, Planet Octopus Studios, and Spring Films.
"When I read Macfarlane's book, I was drawn to the way he told all these specific individual stories but brought in a deeper mythological level to the Underland," producer Aronofsky told IndieWire. "Rob Petit tells different stories, and is working in cinema not text, but pulls off the same trick of mixing myth with character. It's a doc with a unique voice, unlike any I've ever seen."
Petit added, "As a text, Macfarlane's 'Underland' has an inherent tension: it's a journey that leaves behind the world we know and ventures into the strange and unfamiliar. This very special book shines a light not just on forgotten worlds but on a whole new way of seeing and I wanted to make something that ran with that idea. In terms of cinema, that's a gift. We filmed in locations that were hard to even imagine before embarking on the project: flooded storm drains, impossibly tight cave passages, glacial rivers, abandoned mines and a deep underground science laboratory built to solve the mysteries of the universe. In each of these worlds we encountered the most incredible people - explorers and scientists determined to find wonder in the most unlikely places."
Author Macfarlane, whose new book "Is A River Alive?" also just reached number 9 on the New York Times bestseller list, cited how long the documentary has been in the works. He cowrote the film with director Petit, too. "'Underland' has been 4.5 years in the making," he told IndieWire, "and the team has created something astonishing. It's a documentary film -- and one that's experimental in form and tone. It sets both matter and metaphor shivering in strange, powerful ways. It's compassionate and beautiful."
"Underland" is produced by Aronofsky, Ari Handel, Lauren Greenwood, and Jessica Harrop, with Macfarlane, André Singer, Figs Jackman, Craig Miller, Elizabeth Radshaw, Richard Wolfe, and Keith Potter executive producing. Ruben Woodin Dechamps is the director of photography.
"Underland" premieres June 5 in Tribeca's Documentary Competition as a sales title. Check out the first look, an IndieWire exclusive, below.