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Ao, the last Neanderthal
Ao, the last Neanderthal is a French film directed by Jacques Malaterre that was released in France on September 29, 2010. It is an adaptation of the novel Ao, the ancient man by Mark Klapczynski.

It is Jacques Malaterre's first fiction feature film. He has previously directed docu-fictions like A Species Odyssey and Homo Sapiens.

Plot
The action of Ao, the last Neanderthal is set 30,000 Before Present. The film relates the encounter of a Neanderthal (Ao), the sole survivor of his tribe, and a female Homo Sapiens (Aki), the prisoner of a hostile tribe. It explores the relationship between those two species, their possible interbreeding and the eventual extinction of Neanderthal.

Cast
Simon Paul Sutton: Ao

Aruna Shields: Aki

Technical Details
Director: Jacques Malaterre

Screenplay: Michel Fessler, Philippe Isard and Jacques Malaterre

Based on the novel Ao, the ancient man by Mark Klapczynski

Director of photography: Sabine Lancelin

Leading stage designer: Christian Marti

Costumes: Jean-Daniel Vuillermoz

Score composer: Armand Amar

Assistants to the director: Eric Pujol and François Chaillou

Stage photographer: Patrick Plaize

Production: Jacques Arhex and Frédéric Sauvagnac

Post-production: Abraham Goldblat

Sound: Pierre-Yves Lavoué, Jean-Luc Verdier, Thomas Gauder and Olivier Walczak

Technical counsellor: Marylène Patou Mathis

Country: France

Language: French and reinvented prehistoric languages

Budget: 13,000,000 €

Length: 84 minutes

Dates of release (in France and Switzerland): September 29th, 2010 Rated for ages 10 and + in France.

Reception
When it was released, Ao, the last Neanderthal got mixed revues, from the audience and the professional press alike. The film was regarded as a flop, since the audience was only 234,203 in four weeks, and that many theaters had removed it from their program after two weeks only.

Parallels to the Quest for Fire
Like the characters in the Quest for Fire by Jean-Jacques Annaud, those of Ao, the last Neanderthal speak languages that were specially created for the film, without subtitles. On the other hand, the presence of off-screen narration letting the audience hear the thoughts of the characters and therefore making it easier to understand the events.

The names of the two main characters imagined by Mark Klapczynski, Ao and Aki, are close to those of the main characters of Quest for Fire, Naoh and Ika.