A scene from the film Mask by the Quay Brothers'
The Quay Brothers' futuristic film continues to garner festival awards around in the world - from the USA to Uruguay
Mask, the latest film by the Quay Brothers, picked up first prize in the Animation category at the Athens International Film and Video Festival, Ohio, USA. The film, produced in the Łódź studio Se-ma-for was well received at the prestigious festival, which is linked to the American Film Academy. The score was composed by Krzysztof Penderecki, whose film credits include The Shining, The Exorcist and Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island.
The project, which uses stop motion animation, was also successful in the International Animated Film Festival in Cieplice and at the 29th International Film Festival in Montevideo in Uruguay (where it won the award for best film short). The latter festival also hosted Polish films by Jan Kidawy-Błoński (Różyczka / Rose) and Mark Lechki (Erratum). Both received the festival's FIPRESCI award. Daria Kopiec's Zuzannadz_zuzanna_kopiec and Magdalena Osińska's Radostki / Joyets were also shown at the festival and produced in the Łódź Se-ma-for studio.
The Cieplice jury praised Mask for its stunning...cinematic experience. The film is an adaptation of a collection of writings by acclaimed Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem (Solaris, Memoirs Found in a Bathtub), the most translated Polish author after Czesław Miłosz. Lem's writings have already been adapted to film with 2009's Hungarian 1 (directed by Pater Sparrow), the screenplay of which was based on One Human Minute and Ari Folman's version of The Futurological Congress.
It tells the story of a beautiful robot called Duenna, who impersonates a human female in order to complete her mission of destroying a dissident scientist. But she remains torn between her robot mission and sense of human guilt.
We would like to create a dark love story out of Stanisław Lem's short story 'Mask', at the same time making it a horror story in which a machine mercilessly preys on a human being (…) Within the story (the robot) is created step by step, bit by bit, until the sudden point when...the machine takes on the form of a beautiful woman, Duenna. The merciless Duenna sets off on a mission to a great kingdom to find and destroy the prince (but) the machine, in acquiring a female gender, also acquires an element of consciousness...The whole story is based on this multi-layered and worrisome ambiguity...This conflict between the machine and the soul...
-The Quay Brothers' commentary on their film 'Mask'
American identical twins, Stephen and Timothy Quay, are both directors and puppet animators. They are most known for Street of Crocodiles, based on the novel by Polish author Bruno Schulz. Their work on The Chairs, also earned them a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design. The Se-ma-for animation studio, with which the brothers collaborate, celebrated its sixth decade in 2010.The play, Planet Lem featuring figures taken from Stanisław Lem's stories, will be shown around the globe as part of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute's International Programme of Cultural Events of the Polish Presidency of the EU Council. For more information, see: Planet Lem.
Mask, screenplay adaptation of a collection of stories by Stanisław Lem. Directed, animated and shot by The Quay Brothers, music: Krzysztof Penderecki. Production: Se-ma-for Studio, Polish Cultural Institute in London, National Audiovisual Institute (NInA), Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Estrada Poznańska and the Polish Film Institute.
Source: www.stopklatka.pl