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LOGLINE

The film explores zones of decay and ruin where great tragedies have occurred – places charged with symbolism. Throughout the film we sense a spectral presence, an entity that is attempting to communicate with us.

 

SYNOPSIS

What lessons can we learn from a voice speaking to us from a distance of two billion years?

 

Last and First Men juxtaposes a science fiction story written in 1930 and a haunting musical score with filmed images of the “Spomenik” – futuristic, abstract stone monuments erected during the communist era in the former Yugoslav republics. 

 

The narrator describes the life and society of a dying future race of humans, while taking us through a landscape of surreal and phantasmagorical monuments - filmed in 16mm black and white. These structures – once intended as symbols of Unity and Brotherhood but now forgotten, derelict and overgrown by vegetation – stand like lone, abandoned beacons, still beaming their message into the wilderness of the Balkan republics. The roving camera takes us through this futuristic landscape while we gradually learn all about the tragic and yet hopeful story of the last humans.

 

The film creates a poetic relationship between these decaying concrete monuments and Olaf Stapledon’s story of a crumbling future civilization and synthesizes out of these seemingly unrelated elements an allegory on remembrance, unity, commemoration and the death of ideals and utopia.Duration: 70 minutes 

 

LOCATIONS

Podgarić, Croatia

Sanski Most, Bosnia Hercegovina

TjentišteBosnia Hercegovina

Ostra, Serbia

Jasenovac, Croatia

Mostar, Bosnia Hercegovina

Niš, Serbia

Popina, Serbia

Mitrovica, Kosovo

Bihać, Bosnia Hercegovina

Novi Travnik, Bosnia Hercegovina

Petrova Gora, Croatia

Kadinjača, Serbia

Nikšić, Montenegro

DIRECTED BY 

Jóhann Jóhannsson

NARRATED BY

Tilda Swinton

CINEMATOGRAPHY BY

Sturla Brandth Grøvlen

MUSIC BY 

Jóhann Jóhannsson

Yair Elazar Glotman

EDITED BY

Mark Bukdahl

PRODUCED BY

Thor Sigurjonsson, Zik Zak Films

Jóhann Jóhannsson

Sturla Brandth Grøvlen

DISTRIBUTED BY

Films Boutique

CONTACT

sales@zikzak.is

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