31/01/2011

After Susie Templeton’s Peter and Wolf (Oscar winner 2008), the Quay brothers’ Mask (presented at this year’s Rotterdam) and Marek Skrobecki’s Danny Boy (selected at the Stuttgart and Amsterdam festivals), a new production by Lodz’s Se-ma-for studios will soon arrive on the international scene: Polish director Kamil Polak’s The Lost Town of Switez, which will have its world premiere on February 16 in the short film competition at the 61st Berlinale (February 10-20, 2011).

Having started out as the director’s final-year student project, The Lost Town of Switez attracted interest from numerous professionals along the way, including the company which became its main producer: Human Arc, a Warsaw-based studio specialised in 3D graphics. The film combines classic animation based on the traditional techniques of oil painting with 3D digital animation. Seven years of work involving 131 people were needed to complete the 20-minute film.

The Lost Town of Switez is adapted from the epic poem by Adam Mickiewicz, Poland’s greatest writer of the Romantic period. The film visually explores a legend about a flood that mysteriously submerged the town of Switez. The action unfolds on two temporal levels: in the Middle Ages and Mickiewicz’s era.

According to its producers, the film is an apocalyptic fable about destruction and miracles, about the eternal battle between good and evil, about faith and hope. The plot is punctuated by an orchestra and choir score specially composed by Irina Bogdanovich.

Finally, Se-ma-for studios recently started a new co-production: the 26-part Koyaa by Slovenia’s Koljia Saksid, the only artist in his country to work with animation and puppets.

(Translated from French)