Les 13 Vies de Corto Maltese
Jean-Claude Lubtchansky
1996 - 54 min - Vidéo - France

"Dreaming is a way to become immortal", Hugo Pratt used to say. The master of comic strips died in 1995, but Corto Maltese, his most famous character, still travels on in our memory. This film-tribute follows the anarchist sailor and his creator on some of their most beautiful tours.
Between fiction and reality, Jean-Claude Lubtchansky tells Corto Maltese "from the inside". Excerpts from comic strips and water colours, superb archives filmed at the four corners of the earth outline the world of Corto, while the memories of Hugo Pratt and the testimonies of his characters are told. To the mystery of this unique creation in the history of the 9th art, the film provides poetic, sensitive answers that give an irresistible desire to plunge again into this world of dream and paper. As the documentary progresses, Hugo, the sweetheart of adventure, and Corto, his sublimated double, flegmatic and romantic dandy, are confused with one another, reality joins up with imagination.