A group of radicalised activists kidnap the UK’s Secretary of State for the Environment. As tensions rise, the power dynamics within the group start getting in the way of their masterplan.
Genre: Experimental Comedy
Running Time: 1h 1min
Country of Production: UK
Year of Production: 2023
THE FIFTH GENERATION is an experimental dark comedy by Hugo Santa Cruz.
An intuitive foray into the narrative boundaries of the cinematic medium (excuse the pretentiousness) by way of a 25 page script with 5 lead characters only.
Shot 5 times, in 5 days. Each time, each actor plays a different character. Each time, the shooting style varies: general, super 8, theatre, multilingual, and documentary.
DIRECTOR's NOTE
Dear reader,
As much as I wish I could have the Lynchian license to tell you that “the film speaks for itself”, I feel that your experience of this experimental extravaganza might benefit from the following words:
After having a successful run with my no-budget debut feature MY LONDON LULLABY (2021) and meeting countless producers and sales agents in the festival circuit, I came back to London and realised that none of them were returning my emails. As it turns, everyone is as busy as I am…
So, what do you do when you’ve made a successful indie movie and nothing happens with it?
The answer is always: you make another one.
Enter THE FIFTH GENERATION.
The conversation on the climate emergency is ever present in our daily lives, some would argue, to the point of fatigue.
It is however a very pressing matter, which I found could be explored in a humorous way. I think it was Robin Williams who said "comedy gives the artist a greater chance of saying that thing no one wants to hear".
Borrowing loosely from the last 5 minutes of RW Fassbinder’s "The Third Generation" (1979), I came up with the following concept for an experimental feature film:
A 25 page script with 5 lead characters only. Shot 5 times, in 5 days. Each time, each actor plays a different character. Each time, the shooting style varies.
And so began an adventure of discovery which led to a series of questions:
What would happen if we were to follow up a cinematic 4K run with a famous actor playing the lead role, with a challenging (at times shitty looking) super 8 run with a newcomer as the lead?
What if we followed that up with a run that’s half slapstick-theatre-read-through, half homage to the art of screenwriting?
What if for the fourth run we had every actor speak to each other in a different language?
How about closing it as a documentary?
Would that serve both as denouement and emotional reward to the audience?
Given the fact that this is a dialogue-heavy piece; would the repetition allow the audience to better grasp the dynamics at play between the characters, and how these (POWER, BRUTALITY & EXPLOITATION) mimic the societal ills they so criticise in the run up to their climate action?
Bearing in mind the theme, would the repetition serve as a metaphor for the recurring call to action against climate change?
Would the film, ironically, be likewise ignored? LOL!
Ultimately this is an artistic experiment (with a conscience and a sense of humour) on the narrative possibilities of the medium.
My question to the audience is the same as that which the therapist in the film poses to the character of BEE: How does that make you feel?
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