The Loneliest Planet

Directed by: Julia Loktev

2012 | Germany/USA

"In this variation on a theme by Ernest Hemingway, written and directed by Julia Loktev, Alex (Gael García Bernal) and Nica (Hani Furstenberg) hire a guide to take them on a camping trip through the majestic and uninhabited wilds of the Republic of Georgia. From the outset, the couple's slightly kooky curiosity marks them as clueless American tourists. Yet an encounter with another wanderer prompts Alex into an act of cowardice from which the relationship seems unlikely to recover. Loktev's staging of the crucial moment is expert; her look at the aftermath is poignant and nuanced, culminating in a nocturnal sequence that condenses a world of bitter and incommensurable experience into a single shot." - Richard Brody, The New Yorker.

Winner Grand Jury Prize, AFI Fest, 2010