‘Last Hijack’ is like no other documentary film you have seen before. <br /><br />Looking at the world of piracy through the eyes of a veteran Somali pirate, it mixes classical documentary film making with animation. <br /><br />Filmmakers Tommy Pallottae and his wife Femke Wolting teamed up for the movie, which tells the story of Mohamed, who wants to leave the world of crime for a normal family life with his new wife. <br /><br />“His parents want him to stop doing piracy, his bride-to-be wants him to stop, but at the same time everybody wants money from him and things like that. So what he’s actually doing in the film is – he’s preparing for the wedding and reconnecting with his parents and his children, and at the same time he’s preparing for a hijacking. And he thinks in his mind, ‘If I can just do one more than I’m out of the game,’” says Tommy Pallotta.<br /><br />The majority of the film consists of interviews with Mohamed, who explains both the pitfalls and the appeal of being a pirate. Animation is used when there is no footage available, or when the film examines Mohamed’s memories, fears and dreams, including the famine and tribal wars that led him to piracy. <br /><br />“We had a painter, a Dutch painter who paints with oil paints on the canvas and then we took those paintings and we brought them into the 3D animated world. And that gives it a much more human touch. It sort of takes away the math from the animation and it changes the colour palette. And it was a real challenge because we knew that we wanted to switch between live action and animation, but you don’t want to take the audience out of the story,” says Tommy Pallotta.<br /><br />‘Last Hijack’ is not only a full feature length film but also an interactive cross media project that allows users to view the story from multiple perspectives. <br /><br />Out now in selected cinemas in New York and Los Angeles, it is and available on Video On Demand.
