Requiem for Billy the Kid

Colour, 35 mm
France, 2006, 86 min
Section: Documentary Films in Competition

Synopsis

In this French documentary, the story of Billy the Kid begins when sheriff of the small town of Lincoln, Tom Sullivan, decides to have the remains of the local legend exhumed and, with the aid of a DNA test, hopes to discover whether it really is the body of the “American Rimbaud with his colts strapped darned low across his hips” lying here in the local cemetery. “If you ask me, Pat Garrett’s the hero. Billy the Kid was a callous murderer, I don’t understand what people see in him,” says the Lincoln sheriff, who would also like, once and for all, to refute the legend; he believes that Pat Garrett didn’t, in fact, kill his former partner and instead helped him to escape. A stirring road movie across New Mexico richly interspersed with unique archive photographs and a series of excerpts from film adaptations of the famous legend. The film hovers between investigative documentary and acted reconstruction, with the director in a fictional interview with Billy the Kid, whose testimony is conveyed through the inimitable husky voice of Kris Kristofferson.

About the director

Anne Feinsilber is a producer and director working in France and the USA. She has been involved in the production of numerous documentary films, including The Crossing (La Traversée) by Sébastien Lifshitz, screened in Cannes in 2001 in the section Directors’ Fortnight. She has also worked on the film by Raphaël Nadjari I Am Josh Polonski’s Brother (2001) and made several documentary films for BRAVO, VH1 and COURT TV. Requiem for Billy the Kid is her feature length debut.