Synopsis

The film explores the production of scientific knowledge through the director’s visit to secluded research centers in Europe and the USA. The title refers to the classic physical description of the universe, which included the presence of a fifth essence or fifth element (in addition to water, air, fire and earth), mysterious but omnipresent, which holds all the others together. Through a three-years journey, the director visited a number of laboratories studying the fundamental laws of the universe, from the microcosm of quantum physics to the macrocosm of the multiverse.
In these research centers knowledge is developed at scales and distances beyond human perception. But what it actually means to study the universe?
Through a series of intimate dialogue with scientists and a detail visual analysis of experiments and events taking place inside the lab, the director draw an original picture of scientific research, considering how individual background, cultural frameworks and technological constrains play a key role in the elaboration of scientific theories about the universe and its visual representations.