A Penny Weighs More Than a Soul

Ulrich Senoner, known in Italian as "Zio Ulrich" (Uncle Ulrich), is an architect who made the radical decision to leave his professional life in Berlin and return to the mountains of his homeland in South Tyrol. For over six years, he has lived as the only year-round resident at Malga Futura, a remote alpine hut perched at 2,050 meters on the Seiser Alm (Alpe di Siusi), in the heart of the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Without electricity, running water, or internet, Ulrich Senoner endures six months of heavy snowfall each winter. His daily life is a study in radical simplicity: wood-fired heating, spring water, and a rhythm dictated entirely by natural light and seasons. As an architect, he sees the landscape as living architecture and his hut as a camera obscura where light and shadow become a constant perception game.

His nephew, filmmaker Tobias Demetz, spent five years documenting Ulrich's extraordinary existence in the documentary "A Penny Weighs More Than a Soul". The film has captured global attention with over 100 million social media views and a growing community of more than 240,000 followers, all before its official release.

But Ulrich's paradise is now under threat. The future of this hermit of Val Gardena among the peaks is uncertain, making the documentary not just a portrait of solitude, but a record of a vanishing way of life in the Italian Alps.