LOOT

USA / 2008 / Darius Marder / 86 mins / TV cut available upon request mins

"One of the most perfect documentaries I have ever seen. You'll get lost in it. The story is so complex and the characters so quirky, that you'd think the Coen Brothers made a doc." - Morgan Spurlock

LOOT follows two WWII veterans and a used car salesman across the globe in search of their buried wartime treasures.

During WWII, Darrel was stationed in Europe and Andrew, in the Philippines. In the chaos of combat, they stole valuable treasures and hid them overseas before returning to civilian life in America. Sixty years later back in America, both men have gone blind with little hope of ever recovering their goods. Both want to recover the treasures that they feel are their own, but with their health failing, they need Lance’s help (an inventor, used-car salesman and amateur treasure-hunter) to travel halfway around the world to find them.

So with time, distance and the odds against him, Lance throws himself into their dubious quests to unearth the past, laying bare family secrets and dark wartime histories in the process. Loot was shot on three different continents over the course of two and a half years. It is a story about fathers, sons and war, and how the secrets of history bleed into the present moment as three characters come unwittingly to a place where they must choose to face a truth or to bury it forever.

“a hypnotic tale of reckoning, regret, fathers and sons.” - Mike Plant, Filmmaker Magazine

“A genuinely unforeseen journey with strange and complex characters”…”A brilliant debut.” -Jess Search -CEO, Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation