A film cycle by Richard Salinas
Last
and First
Men
Six films on the stories we tell to survive the entropic noise of time — and the closure we invent in a universe that offers none.
Last and First Men is a single argument, made six times.
One film a year, from 2026 to 2031 — each one borrowing the title of a book that once tried to map the far edges of human time, from the oldest story we have to the last ones we have dared to imagine.
The cycle doesn’t lead with spectacle. The machines, the futures, the horror are all there — but held at the edge of the frame, never the point. Each film is set down in a specific, breathing reality — a room, a face, a grief — and lets the cosmic questions arrive through ordinary doors.
Six films · six years · four thousand years of human storytelling, collapsed.
The Cycle — Six Films
Through the Looking Glass
after Lewis Carroll · 1871On the far side of the mirror, reality turns out to be a story still deciding how it ends.
Currently in production — 2026Gilgamesh
after the Babylonian epic · c. 1200 BCEThe oldest story we have is about a king who cannot accept that he will die.
In production — Fall 2026A True Story
after Lucian of Samosata · c. 175 CEThe first voyage beyond the world ever written — told by a narrator who swears, at the outset, that every word is a lie.
In developmentThe Time Machine
after H. G. Wells · 1895A traveller goes far enough forward to watch the sun grow cold over an empty shore.
In developmentThe Night Land
after William Hope Hodgson · 1912Millions of years on, the sun is dead, and the last of us keep a single lit redoubt against the dark.
In developmentAt the Mountains of Madness
after H. P. Lovecraft · 1936Buried in the Antarctic rock, an expedition finds proof that our entire history is a footnote someone else already closed.
In development
“Reality is just another story waiting to be told.” Film I — Through the Looking Glass · showing this Fall
Follow the work