Screened as part of NZIFF 2020

Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway 2019

Jesús te muestra el camino a la autopista

Directed by Miguel Llansó Curated

Miguel Llansó’s sophomore feature is a glorious cherry bomb of outsider psychotronica. Grandiose and enjoyably nutty, no recent film has managed to excite about the future of independent cinema as much as this joyous everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to the ultimate conspiracy flick.

Estonia / Ethiopia / Spain In English
82 minutes VOD

Director/Screenplay

Producers

Mesereta Argaw
,
Miguel Llansó
,
Liis Nimik
,
Kristjan Pütsep
,
Israel Seoane
,
Sergio Uguet de Resayre

Photography

Israel Seoane
,
Michal Babinec
,
Erik Pollumma

Editor

Velasco Broca

Music

Bill Dixon
,
Grosgoroth
,
Atomizador

With

Daniel Tadesse (Agent DT Gagano)
,
Guillermo Llansó (Roy Mascarone)
,
Agustín Mateo (Agent Palmer Eldritch)
,
Gerda-Annette Allikas (Malin)
,
Solomon Taste (Batfro)
,
Lauri Lagle (Commandant Rebane)
,
Rene Köster (Captain Lagucci)
,
Iveta Pole (CIA Professor)
,
Aris Rozentals (Jiminy)

Festivals

Fantasia, Chicago 2019; Glasgow, Luxembourg 2020

Awards

Audience Award, Fantasia Film Festival 2019

A potpourri of kitsch art direction and surreal absurdism in a steaming crockpot of 70s martial art capers, outré science-fiction, European James Bond rip-offs, Filipino exploitation, electronic muzak, free jazz and cold war paranoia, Jesus is the hallucinatory tale of CIA Agents DT Gagano (on his last job) and Palmer Eldritch. Both are guinea pigs in a top-secret experiment where they’ll go into a coma to fight a Soviet computer virus named Stalin in a virtual reality world. If you’re wondering what that looks like, imagine jiggly live-action animated agents wearing Robert Redford and Richard Pryor cardboard masks fighting evil everywhere.

When the bad guys in the virtual world wound Gagano, he becomes stuck in his comatose state back in the lab. His wife Malin, a Teutonic specimen twice his size, is crestfallen as she’d been planning on opening a kickboxing studio pizza parlour with him following his forthcoming retirement. This bonkers Euro-mad production is one for the ages so grab some [insert choice of mind-altering substance here], a bunch of likeminded friends and get ready to witness this utter marvel of low-budget ingenuity. It may just make you love indie cinema all over again. — Ant Timpson

About the Filmmaker
Inspired by experimental-punk-weird music and films, Miguel Llansó studied philosophy and cinema before directing Crumbs (2015), a post-apocalyptic Afro-futuristic adventure set in Ethiopia. Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway is his second feature film.