Immortel ad vitam

France, Italy, UK

Synopsis

Beginning of the twenty-third century. Somewhere in the three levels of NYC, there's a woman with blue hair, who cries blue tears. Her name Is Jill Bioskop. She doesn't know it yet, but Horus the falcon-headed god has cruised half the universe to meet her. Horus has been sentenced to death by his peers. He has just seven days to live. Seven days to find Jill in the maze of the city and seduce her. But to do so, he needs to possess a human body. A vehicle of flesh. It will be Alcide Nikopol, a political prisonner who was cryogenlsed thirty years before because he knew too much about the New York Apartheid. Horus, Nikopol and Jill Bioskop... A weird ménage á trois where everything is twisted: voices, bodies, memories... Everything but love, which shows up where It wasn't expected. Meanwhile, the pyramid of the gods flies above Manhattan, aliens make secret plans at the top of skyscrapers, a non-human serial killer walks the street of Level 1... This Is enough to fascinate Jonathan Froebe, a semi-living cop and to terrify Senator Kyle Allgood Jr, when election time come around.

Director's Biography

Enki Bilal was born in 1951 in Belgrade [ex-Yugoslavia] to a Czech mother and a Bosnian father. The first ten years of his life are spent in this ravaged capital city still haunted by ghosts from the war. It is only when he arrives in Paris that Bilal sees the extent to which his town is mutilated. But this dilapidation has already formed the basis of his graphic world. In 1961, he discovers the French language as well as comic strips and the cinema.
In 1971, he wins a competition organized by Pilote. His first story is published the following year. His meeting with Pierre Christin gives birth to several albums, including Les Phalanges de l’Ordre Noir [1979] and Partie de Chasse [1983], demonstrating the predilection of many writers for geopolitical subjects where the boundaries of journalism and fantasy merge. Other works follow, which explore different narrative techniques: Los Angeles, L’Etoile Oubliée by Laurie Bloom, Coeurs Sanglants [another collaboration with Pierre Christin] and Hors-Jeu [with Patrice Cauvin]. At the same time, Bilal works on his own to produce three albums: La Foire aux Immortels [1980], La Femme Piège [1986] and Froid Equateur [1992], which take the form of a trilogy and establish a baroque world completely out of the ordinary.
Winning the Grand Prix at Angoulême in 1987, Bilal works with Alain Resnais on La Vie est un Roman [1982] and with Michael Mann on The Keep [1983]. Then in 1989, he directs his first feature-length film entitled Bunker Palace Hotel.
In March 1996, his second feature film, Tykho Moon, is released. Equally passionate about theater design, he works with André Engel on an opera by Denis Levaillant, performed by the Opéra Ballet of Lyon and choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj [Roman and Juliet by Prokofiev, in 1991]. 1998 marks the start of a new trilogy with the realization of Le Sommeil du Monstre.
From January until April 2001, his work is on show at an exhibition entitled enkibilalandeuxmilleun at the Bibliothèque Historique in paris.
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Cast & Crew

Directed by: Enki Bilal

Written by: Serge Lehman , Enki Bilal

Produced by: Charles Gassot

Cinematography: Pascal Gennesseaux

Original Score: Goran Vejvoda

Cast: Yann Collette (Froebe ), Linda Hardy (Jill), Thomas Kretschmann (Nikopol), Charlotte Rampling (Elma Turner )

Nominations and Awards

  • Feature Film Selection 2004