While Europe rushes towards an uncertain future amidst loud protests, a man loses his memory after a robbery. Confused and with nothing to hang on to, he breaks out of his helpless state by taking a drastic decision. He leaves home and sets off on a curious odyssey. Guided by confrontational, tragicomic and hopeful meetings, he struggles to get to grips with himself and the future.

This first feature by Fiona Tan, who wrote the script with film critic Jonathan Romney, unfolds an epic film poem, with a strong European cast. The fiction, captured in powerful set pieces, is interspersed with raw news footage of riots in European cities and short interviews about hope and desire. This not only reveals Tan’s background in the visual arts but also her experience as a director of documentaries. The meanderings of a man with no memory form the common thread in an associative, complex whole in which reality and imagination, symbolism and dreamt possibilities come seamlessly together. A form of disorientation that invites us to philsophise on opportunities and choices, on identity, history and our place in the world. “The future is a tale told by an idiot”, as our wandering hero unexpectedly recalls at one point.

Will he end up in rags, or a sharp suit? Can he start afresh? Leaving an airport, he steps into a waiting taxi that takes him to a deserted lot. “What now?” he asks. The driver says nothing.

History’s Future was filmed on location in Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin, Barcelona, Athens, Leipzig, Berlin and London. The film’s cast includes Mark O’Halloran, Denis Lavant, Anne Consigny, Christos Passalis, Rifka Lodeizen, Johanna ter Steege and Brian Gleeson. History’s Future is Fiona Tan’s first feature film.