^{Still: Last Hijack}

Early in the film, produced by Dutch production house Submarine with the support of the Netherlands Film Fund, we see Mohamed and his friends discussing what might be Mohamed’s last mission as they sit on the rocks in the desert. They make an inventory of what they need - flak jackets, AK47 ammunition, the GPS and the First Aid kit. He is planning to get married...again. (He already has several children from his previous marriages.) His fiancée, parents and relatives, meanwhile, put him under huge pressure to quit piracy.

“We had been reading the news reports about piracy and we became rather fascinated by the subject,” co-director Wolting recalls of what drew the directors to the subject.

“What kind of conditions would you have to be in that it would make you go out on a small fishing boat and try to take over a huge cargo ship? We were trying to imagine what that really must be like and how desperate you must be,” Pallotta adds. “We were searching for the universal story of what you would do to survive and what is the collateral damage of the decisions that you make.”

The animation is vivid and dramatic, and is intended to show “the subjective reality” of Mohamed’s world. But it is also self-consciously lyrical and intended to suggest Mohamed’s dreams, desires and fears. “It is really all through his lens,” Pallotta says. There are interviews with Mohamed’s closest relatives who talk about their fears for him once he joined the pirates. Huge ransoms could be won. For an impoverished and failing country, it was easy to see the attraction of piracy. As Mohamed’s father puts it, “the ocean turned into a pool full of cash.”

It took the directors a year and a half to find Mohamed and to persuade him to appear in the doc. “He doesn’t have any ambition to leave Somalia and so he was very open and honest about his experience,” says Wolting. “His father was very happy he took part in the film because he thought it would be a first step for him maybe to get out of piracy. That’s why his father was very collaborative and also his mum. They really gave us great access to their family life and their kids. They saw it as a way of helping Mohamed.”

The directors realised it would be almost impossible to make a traditional documentary. For a start, Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. It wasn’t as if they could simply travel there and start filming. “The only way we could shoot there was if we hired a private army of about fifteen soldiers and a couple of bulletproof SUVs!” Wolting states. “We considered it, but thought we never would have been able to get close to our main characters.” Instead, they directed it remotely, using Skype and cellphones.

“We did something really experimental. For the documentary part, we worked with a young and smart Somali journalist who worked for Channel 4 as a writing journalist but had no experience of documentaries, and a Somali DOP who studied at art academy in the Netherlands. They went together.”

Wolting and Pallotta worked for weeks with the team in Amsterdam planning scenes, shotlists and interviews with their collaborators, and shot scenes in Amsterdam experimenting with the style of the film. Then they went so Somalia and kept in touch continually via cellphone. Every two days the material that was shot was sent by Fedex to the directors.

Last Hijack is being sold by Match Factory. It will be launched to distributors as a feature film. However, the doc is also accompanied by an interactive installation.

With Pallotta and Wolting sharing the directorial credit, who did what and where were the creative lines drawn? “We divided it (the work) a little but we’re both control freaks and so, I think, in the end, we did everything together,” Wolting suggests. “We were both very affectionate...and very stubborn!”

“The end result isn’t something that would have come from either one of us,” Pallotta says of the collaboration.

Wolting has seen Captain Phillips but Pallotta hasn’t. “It’s a rollercoaster thriller movie,” Wolting says of the Paul Greengrass film. Although Greengrass attempted to provide some background context, she still felt that the pirates were portrayed as drug-crazed aggressors. By contrast, Last Hijack attempts to give the pirates’ perspective. “We wanted to show a more human side.”

Another important difference is that the opposition against the pirates in Last Hijack isn’t led by western politicians and business people. It’s the pirates’ own relatives who are trying to change their behaviour.

No, Mohamed won’t be in Berlin for the film’s premiere. He would almost certainly be arrested if he tried to come to the west. “It’s impossible for him to leave the country. He is one of the most experienced pirates. He has done many hijacks...it would be very unsafe for him to travel.” In his absence, Pallotta and Wolting will be representing the film.

Last Hijack already has one influential supporter. Pallotta showed it to his friend and collaborator, Richard Linklater, who was hugely impressed by the animation techniques. Linklater is now getting Pallotta and Wolting to work on his big budget Hollywood movie The Incredible Mr Limpet which is half live-action and half animation.

“Each project feels like it’s an extension of the last one,” Pallotta states. “I am a firm believer that animation doesn’t have just to be for children which is the way that it is typically viewed here (in the US.) It’s a really great device to use for storytelling.”

Last Hijack Director: Tommy Pallotta, Femke Wolting Script: Tommy Pallotta, Femke Wolting Production: Submarine (NL) in co-production with Still Films (IE), Razor Film (DE), Savage Film (BE) Sales: The Match Factory