Mauro Herce | Spain/France 2015, 74 minutes | 9pm, Friday 22 July
Dead Slow Ahead is a transcendent sci-fi documentary that must be experienced. – Emily Yoshida, The Verge
The freighter Fair Lady crosses the ocean. The hypnotic rhythm of its gears reveals the continuous movement of machinery devouring its workers: the last gestures of the old sailors’ trade disappearing under the mechanic and impersonal pace of 21st century neocapitalism. Perhaps it is a boat adrift, or maybe just the last example of an endangered species. Although we don’t know it, the engines are still running, unstoppable.
This monumental film is both the documentation of a simple cargo run from Odessa to New Orleans and the depiction of a crew swallowed by their sublime vessel. An astonishing debut feature film from noted cinematographer Mauro Herce (Arraianos, The Fifth Gospel of Kasper Hauser, and QFF2016’s Mimosas), may be a documentary; however it is instilled with the unmistakable atmosphere of Alien’s Nostromo.
D Mauro Herce S Mauro Herce and Manuel Muñoz Rivas
C Mauro Herce E Manuel Muñoz P Jose Alayón
Language: Tagalog with English Subtitles
Distribution: Bocalupo Films DCP
Unrated 15 +
Winner of the 2015 Locarno Special Jury Prize and Best Film and Best First Feature Film Prize at the 2015 Doclisboa International Film Festival.