The Last Tender

As the first wave of covid-19 begins to spread across the globe, filmmaker Lucia Coppola travels on a cruise for one month around Asia and the Middle East accompanied by Harry Plomer. The Last Tender follows Plomer as he navigates the highs and lows of the holiday, interjected with the experiences of fellow cruisers through interviews, anecdotes and activities.

Everything seems to be going to plan until the holidaymakers are informed that the Sri Lankan authorities have closed off their borders to all cruise ships.

In spite of the ever encroaching threat of this new contagious disease, the cruise continues on its course. There is a growing feeling that this may be the last party for some time. The entertainment continues constantly, everyone is trying to have fun whilst they still can. The cruise ship becomes a sanctuary shielding the revelers from the growing shadow of the reality of what is approaching on land.

Comical and existential, The Last Tender asks the question ‘whats-it-all-for?’. It’s style is both observational and performative: viscerally capturing the mood of the strange experience.

  • Lucia Coppola
    Director
  • Harry Plomer
    Key Cast
  • Lucia Coppola
    Key Cast
  • Harry Plomer
    Music
  • Nicholas & Andrei Tooth Travelling Scholarship
    Funded by
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Feature
  • Genres:
    Observational, Interview, Creative Documentary
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 8 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    April 6, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    3,600 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    Malaysia, Oman, Singapore, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Viet Nam
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Full HD
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • London
    United Kingdom
    July 17, 2021
Distribution Information
  • None
Director - Lucia Coppola
Director Statement

Lucia Coppola is concerned with leisure, pleasure-seeking, and entertainment culture as sites for considering anthropological and ontological questions. Her upbringing in Brighton has particularly influenced her filmmaking and performance practice.

She has a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths and was the recipient of the Nicholas & Andrei Tooth Travelling Scholarship in 2019. As a result, she created The Last Tender (64 minutes) which was filmed during a month-long cruise at the start of the pandemic. Drawing from her experiences of family cruise holidays, she explored how entertainment spaces like cruise ships operate as microcosms where codes of behaviour, social hierarchies, and performances of power are intensified, reinforced, or opposed. She focused on herself and those closest to her as protagonists.

Through a process of zooming in and getting under the surface of the subject matter, her work aims to understand and challenge the pre-existing culture of a space and the specific ways one is meant to navigate through it