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WEST OF THE MOON

Drama - Development 2023

The story of a boy who, burdened with a sense of guilt over the accidental death of his best mate, grows up to become the man in the moon.

A story of love, grief, boyhood and Sinatra songs, set partly in England in 1998 and partly on the Moon in 2035.

- Year of production
- 2023
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- UNITED KINGDOM, FRANCE
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Budget
- 3 - 5 M$
- Duration
- 101 mn
- Writer(s)
- Bernard BESSERGLIK
- Producer(s)
- Malcolm MOORE (PLANISPHERES), Alexander FERWER, Guilhem PRATZ ( Artadam, Développement Cinéma Fiction)
- Synopsis
- WEST OF THE MOON is a film about love, grief and the burden of a sense of guilt. Its underlying logic is emotional and poetic. To achieve its effects it deploys moments of fantasy, flashes of humour and snatches of Sinatra songs. It seeks constantly to surprise.
  
  The film tells two stories intertwined – that of an 11-year-old boy and that of the man he becomes : Pierre the boy on the houseboat with the parents he really didn’t get on with, and Pierre the Man in the Moon, the astronaut with a tragic destiny. Pierre is the sole survivor of a lunar expedition that should have been a fairy-tale love affair but which became a personal tragedy.
  
  The stories, set about 35 years apart, are told in alternating sequences. At the heart of both lies an earlier tragedy, the accidental drowning of Pierre’s best mate. Pierre feels responsible for what happened. In his confused mind, he wants to confess, just as President Bill Clinton – whose confession regarding the Lewinsky affair he sees on television – did. What better way to make amends than to assume his friend’s chosen career path, to become a pilot and then an astronaut?
  
  The boy on the houseboat’s story (1998) catches up with the Man in the Moon’s story (mid-2030s). The boy Pierre makes his confession and a family drama ensues. The astronaut Pierre, alone on the Moon, has laboured for five years to restore the lunar landing vessel to the upright position necessary to make a re-launch possible. He is haunted by the memory of the failure of his mission, by a sense of loss, and by the feeling that somehow it was all his fault.
  
  His confession made, the drama resolved, the boy Pierre sets off – his parents give him no choice – on the houseboat’s last journey. His lunar landing vessel finally repaired, the Man in the Moon Pierre blasts off for his final journey into space. Back to Earth, ravaged by global warming and ecological collapse? Or out into the void? He leaves the decision until the last possible moment, as Sinatra croons Fly Me to the Moon / Let me play among the stars…