A Post-Apocalyptic Garden of Eden: Marco Ferreri’s "Il seme dell’uomo"

Released in 1969, Il seme dell’uomo represents an anomaly in the artistic trajectory of Marco Ferreri, standing out as the only science-fiction feature-length film produced by the prolific Italian filmmaker. In this chapter, I contextualize Il seme dell’uomo within Marco Ferreri’s lifelong cinematic project by pointing out recurring themes and tropes that could help us to extrapolate Ferreri’s underlying eco-political message and his choice to experiment with science fiction. Even if in Il seme dell’uomo Ferreri is not engaging directly with environmental issues, the film is, ultimately, a remarkably unique vision of planetary catastrophe and it represents the attempt by one of Italy’s most visionary filmmakers to reflect on the possibility of human extinction.