Cochise and Gilou are bounty hunters, searching for a cell phone containing some very important information. Homeless youngsters Willy and Esther, in love and without anywhere to go, have the phone and don’t care what’s on it, keeping it turned off and rendering its tracking device useless. Across a barren wasteland, hunter and prey wander, running into a decrepit hotelier (Michael Lonsdale), an undertaker (Max von Sydow), and a man who looks suspiciously like Jesus Christ. Around and around they go, until both inexplicably run into the maw of an ambitious local gang with more muscle than brains.
Bouli Lanners' dry and violent comedy is a surrealistic and melancholy masterpiece, winner of the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Berlin Film Festival. “With hipster wit, endless film allusions, and deadpan Belgian surrealism, The First, the Last… reaches for gestural absurdity, and captures it.” —David D’Arcy, Screendaily
Bouli Lanners: Born in Moresnet-Chapelle, Belgium in 1965, Bouli Lanners studied at the Académie Royaledes Beaux Arts in Liège and first worked as an actor before becoming a film director in 1995. His 2011 film Les Gèants (The Giants) screened in the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes and played at MSPIFF 2012.
Sponsored by: