The Last Dog on Earth
Date:
December 15, 2022
The Last Dog on Earth
The Last Dog on Earth
by Nina Kopko
Vitrine Filmes, Boulevard Filmes | Brazil
Live-action feature | 1st feature
Logline
In the near future, Luana, a forlorn rideshare driver, is just one fare away from affording her long-planned suicide. But her last passenger is hiding something in his suitcase: a dog named Laika. And in this world, dogs are supposed to be extinct.
Synopsis
Set in a near-future São Paulo, slightly more dystopian than today, the film follows LUANA, 35, a hopeless, sarcastic, and exhausted app driver. This is her final ride. After this, she will have enough money to enter a legal assisted-death clinic and end her life with pleasure.
Her last passenger is EDU, 30. He is leaving Earth on a one-way mission to Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. Before departing, he needs to get rid of what he has been hiding in his suitcase: a dog named LAIKA.
In this world, dogs no longer exist. Domestic mammals were eradicated years earlier, after a virus turned them into lethal carriers for humans. Seeing a living dog for the first time in almost five years unsettles Luana in ways she refuses to name.
Luana was once a veterinarian. She took part in the mass euthanasia of pets, but she couldn’t kill her own dog. What followed destroyed what was left of her life.
Edu leaves Laika with Luana, assuming she will do what she has done before: euthanize the animal before ending her own life. But Luana can’t do it. Not again. Yet giving up on her initial plan is no longer an option.
Now, with Laika out of the suitcase, the two females are in grave danger. She drives into the night, trapped between two endings, searching for a destination for what might be the last dog on Earth.
Director’s Profile
Nina Kopko is a director, screenwriter, acting coach and casting director.
She was the assistant director on Invisible Life (dir. Karim Aïnouz, Grand Prix at Un Certain Regard, Cannes Film Festival 2019) and The Silence of the Sky (dir. Marco Dutra, Special Jury Prize at the Gramado Film Festival 2016). She has written scripts for major players such as Globo, Netflix and Paramount+. She was the casting director for Motel Destino (Aïnouz, 2024) and conducted artistic research for I’m Still Here (dir. Walter Salles, 2024), which won the Academy Award for Best International Feature.
Her directorial debut, the short film Lunch Break (2021), won over 30 national and international awards. Highlights include Best Short Film at the Havana, Brasília, Rio, Ceará, and Fribourg festivals, and others. The film also was a finalist for the Brazilian Academy Awards and was named Best Brazilian Short of 2021 by the Brazilian Film Critics Association.
In 2024, she wrote and directed two documentary series: The History of a Plant (GNT/Globoplay) and Women for Independence (TV Brasil/History Channel).
In 2025, she was selected for Berlinale Talents at the Berlin International Film Festival. Previously, in 2022, she joined the screenwriting residency at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, supported by Projeto Paradiso.
She is currently working on her first feature film, The Last Dog on Earth, produced by Vitrine Filmes.
Company Profile
Vitrine Filmes is a distributor and producer of independent films that has promoted the growth and recognition of Brazilian cinema for over fifteen years.
Its catalog has reached over 5 million viewers, featuring works such as “Bacurau,” by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes 2019; “Nosso Sonho,” directed by Eduardo Albergaria, the most-watched Brazilian film in theaters in 2023; “The Blue Trail,” by Gabriel Mascaro, winner of the Silver Bear in Berlin; and “The Secret Agent,” the latest film by Kleber Mendonça Filho, Best Director winner in Cannes.
Since 2021, Vitrine has also produced and co-produced shorts, documentaries, and fiction features, including “Amigo Secreto” (DocLisboa 2022) by Maria Augusta Ramos, “Levante,” by Lillah Halla (FIPRESCI Award, Critics’ Week 2023); and “Retratos Fantasmas,” a documentary by Kléber Mendonça Filho (Cannes 2023).
The company also supported the development of three new features through the creative hub “Vozes do Futuro: Olhares Femininos,” with screenwriters Thais Fujinaga, Nina Kopko, Tainá Muhringer, and Alice Name-Bomtempo.
In 2025, Vitrine shot “Every Beat of Gil,” a documentary on Gilberto Gil’s political path. Upcoming projects include “Milk Powder,” the first fiction feature by Carlos Segundo, co-produced with France and awarded the Hubert Bals Fund, and “Inside the Noise,” the debut feature by Argentine filmmaker Martina Juncadella, co-produced with Argentina and France.