| Film: | 35mm ,color |
| Photography: | Christopher Doyle |
| Screenplay: | Gus Van Sant |
| Staring: | Gabe Nevins, Taylor Momsen, Jake Miller, Dan Liu, Lauren McKinney, Scott Green |
| Production: | MK2 (France), Meno Film Company (USA) |
| Sales: | MK2 |
Alex is a sixteen-year-old skateboarder who accidentally kills a security guard close to Paranoid Park, a tough neighborhood in Portland. He decides not to tell anyone.
“I decided to adapt Blake Nelson’s book because he set his story in Portland, which I like. The fact that the main character is an amateur skateboarder and the story has a particularly oppressive atmosphere were other attractive features of the book. I played around with the structure quite a lot – most parts of the book appear in the film, too, but their structure is quite different. And the great thing for this kind of film is that I could shoot the authentic moves of skateboarders with a Super 8 because this medium as well as the video tape are typical of teenagers.” (Gus Van Sant)
Gus Van Sant (1952, Louisville, Kentucky) is one of the pivotal representatives of “independent American cinema” together with Jim Jarmusch and Hal Hartley. He studied fine arts but right after graduation from the Rhode Island School of Design he got involved in filmmaking, first as an assistant director. He drew attention by his exceptional debut Mala noche (1985), later followed by the equally famous Drugstore Cowboys (1989) and the fascinating My Own Private Idaho (1991), the most remarkable American film of the late 80`s and early 90`s. After several big productions shot in Hollywood he returned to a more complex and meditative line of work based on experimenting with expressional means: Gerry (2002) and Elephant (2003 – Golden Palm at Cannes). Last Days was screened at the Bratislava IFF in 2006.
