Two grizzled bounty hunters in pursuit of a stolen mobile phone containing compromising files cross paths with a fragile couple on the margins of society and Jesus (!) in this unique and drily absurd road movie/Walloon Western. Both a hymn to life and a thumbing of the nose at death, The First, the Last once again proves maverick director Lanners (Ultra Nova, PSIFF 2006) is an auteur with a powerful visual universe and a generous if melancholy humanity.

All of Lanners' usual themes are at play here: the exploded family unit that characters try to piece back together by any means possible, the improbability of existence and the extraordinary mystery that surrounds human life. Max von Sydow and Michael Lonsdale appear in particularly apt cameo roles.

"Paradoxically it's the only film I have made that ends well. Even if this is the end of the world, even if disease might shorten our lives, what time we have left has to be lived to the full, and for others. To me this film is a real message of hope." Bouli Lanners