A Blue Room, made in stop-motion animation technique, was co-produced by the Łódź studio Se-Ma-For. The twelve-minute animation tells the story of a man in a coma who is visited by hallucinations playing on his fears and memories. The film, made under the artistic supervision of Piotr Dumała, was completed in March 2012. Each frame was painted on glass, then colored with graphic software.
The film was a Polish-French cooperation, to which the Polish Film Institute contributed 100 thousand zlotys (approximately 25 thousand euros). A Blue Room will compete with nine other short films during the Critics' Week at the 67th International Cannes Film Festival (14 -25 May 2014).
Besides the main selection, the Critics Week is the oldest competition in Cannes. It was established in 1962 and contributed to the development of of many directors's careers, like Chris Marker, Denys Arcand, Bernardo Bertolucci, Philippe Garel, Wong Kar-Wai, Arnaud Desplechin, Guillermo del Toro, Kevin Smith and Francois Ozon. Its purpose is to present the work of young artists to a wide audience and to journalists from around the world . Every year only from 7 to 10 full-feature and short films take part in it.
Another Polish creation will be shown at the 67th International Film Festival in Cannes. In the Directors' Fortnight competition will be shown Aga Woszczyńska's Fragments.The film presents the collapse of a relationship and simultaneously, of the main character's universe. Fragments was produced by the National Film School in Łódź in collaboration with AT Productions and Before My Eyes.
The Directors' Fortnight was created by the French Directors Guild after the events of May '68 to showcase the work of young, promising filmmakers. Werner Herzog , George Lucas, Martin Scorsese , Ken Loach, Jim Jarmusch and Michael Haneke have all shown their work at previous editions.
Source: PAP; translated by LB, April 2014