Some 350,000 years ago, a different human population dominated the world. Despite harsh Ice Age conditions, these people managed to adapt and to rule over the animal kingdom. They were the Neanderthals. Over thousands of years, these gatherers-hunters built know-how and developed beliefs and an entire culture. But around 30,000 years ago, these men, women and children disappeared forever. That disappearance remains a mystery. Many hypotheses have been offered to explain this disappearance, including genocide, epidemics, climate change, consanguinity, and gene dilution. In order to elucidate the enigma, this ambitious one-off film unfolds as a crime investigation, illustrated through docudrama and computer-generated imagery. It takes us around the world to the forensic labs and to the main regions the Neanderthals inhabited. Who were the disappearees? What was their culture? What relations had they with modern humans? What really happened to them?
Screening time: 10:37 AM - 12:16 PM, Saturday, May 4, 2019
Length: 98 mins.
Country: France
Language: French with English subtitles
Director: Thomas Cirotteau
Distributor: Lucky You (Robert Salvestrin)