Limbo

Limbo

Australia | 2023 | 108 min. | Ivan Sen (Gamilaraay, Bigambul)

March 29 - April 4, 2024

For a police inspector, a "cold case" from 20 years earlier becomes the occasion for a journey into the past in time and space, where the ghosts of a closed and hostile community and his own ghosts come back to life.

"A desert noir,” as defined by the director Ivan Sen. The desert, understood as limbo, a purgatorial zone, a no man's land. Shot entirely in black-and-white, the film boasts splendid photography, which serves to appropriately highlight the lights and shadows of the landscape. The story adopts a serious and brooding rhythm, made up of repeated gestures, those of the detective who tries and tries again, until he immerses himself in a context that simmers with ethnic conflicts: blacks and whites, foreigners and natives, the rich and the poor in yet another version of the exploitation of the weakest. Two Aborigines, ex-husband and wife in conflict with some children who risk getting lost, are the main clue for the detective who tries to open a breach. Simon Baker and Rob Collins are the pillars on which the narration of the film rests, which has the Australian Outback as a third but no less important protagonist, framed from above like a lunar surface. Vast, fascinating, and unsettling.

—Angelo Acerbi

  • Director: Ivan Sen (Gamilaraay, Bigambul)
  • Principal Cast: Simon Baker, Rob Collins, Natasha Wanganeen, Nicholas Hope, Mark Coe
  • Country: Australia
  • Year: 2023
  • Running Time: 108 min.
  • Producer: David Jowsey, Rachel Higgins, Greer Simpkin, Ivan Sen
  • Screenplay: Ivan Sen
  • Cinematographers: Ivan Sen
  • Editors: Ivan Sen
  • Music: Ivan Sen
  • Filmography: Mystery Road Goldstone
  • US Distributor: Music Box
  • International Sales: Dark Matter