Still from Marta Pajek's "Sleepincord', photo: Se-ma-for Produkcja Filmowa
The magical power of a strange tree which changes the loving relationship between a father and son, and a symbolical umbilical cord which joins together different worlds, two Polish animations compete at the Hiroshima Animation Festival
A confrontation between the innocence of a little boy and the suddenly changed father whose inexplicable behaviour scares and petrifies the child. Living a forest surrounded by nature and the nearby ocean, their life is simple and fulfilling – after work the father, who is a lumberjack makes wooden toys, they walk and play together. One day when they go to the forest together, the lumberjack cuts down a strange tree. It completely changes him and turns their life upside down. Paweł Dębski’s 15 minute long animation Lumberjack illustrates how the child’s admiration for his father transforms as the man starts to act irrationally.
Marta Pajek’s 14 minute long 2011 Sleepincord raises the issue of dream. Trapped between two worlds – the real and the invented which are linked together by a thin “dream umbilical cord”, the girl in the animation witnesses an abstract sphere of spirals human and animal shapes. A remarkable, surprising and disturbing journey through the visible and invisible, the physical and the spiritual, that which can be examined and that which cannot, the titular Sleepincord is a mysterious transmission channel.
The 14th International Animation Festival in Hiroshima includes 66 works from 23 countries.
Sources: Hiroshima Animation Festival, culture.pl, Polish Shorts, FilmWeb
Editor: Marta Jazowska