“Not many people admit out loud that growing up is not for children,” says Kuba Czekaj, director of Baby Bump, the twisted coming-of-age movie due to be screened at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival. Baby Bump was written and directed by Kuba Czekaj, with cinematography by Adam Palenta.
Imagine you’re an 11-year-old boy. Your ears stick out. You glue them to your skin. It hurts. People don’t understand you – they use you sometimes, they don’t quite respect you, they don’t comprehend you. You’re different.
I wanted to make a non-realistic film about physically growing up, about changes in a body that grows and transforms into a monster. The story focuses on the corporality of a 11-year-old boy, on the frustrations it causes him. He doesn’t want to be ignored, nor noticed. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him. He completely rejects the fact that the transformation has already begun. He flees into a fantasy world, a cruel fairy tale. Communication with both his peers and his mother, who’s unable to accept that her son is changing, is stretched to breaking point.
Baby Bump is a portrait of a child trapped in the process of growing up. Not many people admit out loud that growing up is not for children.
- Kuba Czekaj, writer and director of Baby Bump.