A film exploring why an increasing number of people who follow esoteric teachings have come to a small, picturesque village in southwest France to wait out a global apocalypse coming in 2012.

Among the many myths surrounding rural Bugarach, population 189, are claims that the so-called lost civilizations of Lemuria and Atlantis originated here. UFOs also allegedly swirl overhead, and the local mountain may in fact be a gateway to alien beings who like to sail their spaceships on a huge interior mountain lake.

"It's the town that will resist the end of the world," read a headline in La Dépêche recently, echoing "pilgrims" in Bugarach who believe that helpful extraterrestrials are waiting inside the mountain to whisk them away when the Mayan calendar ends on Dec. 21, 2012.

The director will interview locals, visitors and historians in an attempt to understand this phenomenon. She will also enter the deep caverns of the mountain to discover what mysteries lie within.