A unique experience!
A wonderful and poetic journey! Everybody has to watch this amazing film!
1973/74: Kiel students participate with the Peter von Danzig in the Whitbread Round The World Race, the first sailing regatta around the world. The only German crew, the only ship without engine. Absolute outsiders, hippies, against navy elites. Stations of their daring voyage: Portsmouth – Cape Town – Sydney – Rio – Portsmouth. At the finish line after eight months, they receive the Best Loser award.
The visual language of Last Ship Home is based on the (silent) original Super-8 recordings, while the soundtrack recounts the adventure of the dramatic sailing race with excerpts from the logbook and literary texts by Melville, Conrad, Hölderlin, Homer et al.: Euphoria, tensions on board, dramatic storms and the depression of the calms are spoken and interpreted by well-known German actors such as Carlo Ljubek, Christoph Luser, Thomas Anzenhofer and Oliver Nägele.
Rich in technical details and every so often lyricised, Last Ship Home emerges as an entrancing ‘road movie’ (or sea journey, rather) about an unprepared group of adventurers and hippies that seem to be more interested in the adventure itself rather than the competition. This will prove to be more of a challenge than they have initially expected. A documentary of experimental taste Last Ship Home is almost hypnotic leaving the viewers nostrils soaked with salty scent and the senses anesthetised by the almost palpable presence of the sea.
