polski

Treasure of The Bitch Island

F.J. Ossang
Le trésor des îles chiennes
France, Portugal 1990 / 108’

An engineer who ran a mysterious lab that synthesizes energy from two newly discovered substances, disappears. In this post-apocalyptic world, his replacement, Ullysses, organizes an expedition to the only place where both the substances can be found. The soundtrack by the Messageros Killers Boys, the French director’s cult postpunk band, dramatically acellerates the expedtion, drawing it into a spiral of paranoid hallucinations and drug induced delusions. Through volcanic landscapes, the heroes – reminiscent of romantic poets awed by the ‘black sun’ rather than AK-47 armed engineers, speed in jeeps into existential darkness, encounter foreboding evil and a femme fatale. It’s either the end or the beginning of a new noir world.

F.J. Ossang

Born in 1956 in Paris as Jacques Plougeaut. Actor, screenwriter, and film director. Also a writer and musician (creator of a band M.K.B. Franction Provisoire a.k.a. Messageros Killers Boys). He made his directorial debut as F.J. Ossang in 1985 with L’Affaire des divisions Morituri – a film combining the aesthetics of avant-garde and melodrama cinema. His subsequent films, especially Silence, which received the prestigious Jean Vigo award, and in Doctour Chance,a film fantasy on hardboiled crime fiction (with cameo and music by Joe Strummer of The Clash), Ossang prove his artistry in the field of poetic cinema. His latest film, Dharma Guns, screened in competition at the 2011 New Horizons Film Festival.

Selected filmography

1985 L’Affaire des divisions Morituri

1990 Skarb wyspy suk / Le trésor des îles chiennes / Treasure of the Bitch Islands

1997 Docteur Chance / Doctor Chance

2007 Silêncio / Silence (short)

2008 Ciel éteint! / Sky’s Black Out! (short)

2008 Vladivostok (short)

2010 Dharma Guns

Credits

director F.J. Ossang
screenplay F.J. Ossang
cinematography Darius Khondji
editing Natalie Perrey
music Messageros Killers Boys
cast Stéphane Ferrara, Diogo Dória, José Wallenstein, Mapi Galán, Michel Albertini, Serge Avedikian, Clovis Cornillac
producer Paulo Branco, Oskar Leventon, F.J. Ossang
production Filmargem, Gémini Films, Instituto Português de Cinema, Investimage, La Sept Cinéma, Molécules, Trois Lumières Production
sales Urban Distribution
language French
colouration b&w