Films Boutique (“Lunana, a Yak in the Classroom”) has boarded “White Plastic Sky,” the animated feature debut of Tibor Bánóczki and Sarolta Szabó, the duo behind the critically successful shorts “Les Conquerants” and “Leftover.”
A dystopian eco-fantasy, “White Plastic Sky” is set in a near future, where the last humans live in an artificial dome with a very high price for survival: At the age of 50, they are implanted with a special seed turning them into a tree that will provide oxygen and food for the community. A young man, Stefan, supports this system until the day his wife Nora gives her life up for voluntary implantation. Driven by his love, Stefan decides to break the rules of this society in order to save her.
The project combines 2D and 3D and used a rotoscoping technique allowing the animators to trace over live action footage to create animation frames. Although the animated feature is filled with fantasy, “White Plastic Sky” also has a strong scientific dimension as the directors worked with geologists, botanists and meteorologists to write the script.
It’s produced by Orsolya Sipos and József Fülöp at Salto Films in Hungary, in co-production with Juraj Krasnohorsky from Artichoke in Slovakia.
The producers said they were pleased to work with Films Boutique which has a long experience with director-driven movies and festival hits. The pair described the film as an “eco-dystopian drama, a road movie, and a love story at the same time.”
Gabor Greiner, COO of Films Boutique, said the banner was “thrilled to work with these two extraordinarily talented directors on such an outstanding animation which not only convinces with its high production and artistic value but tells a strong and timely story of our endangered ecology and environment bedded within an engaging love story.”
Bánóczki and Szabó pointed out the timeliness of their project. “Never in our history has the human awareness of our global existence and the recognition of the forthcoming doomsday affected and wounded our daily lives as much as these days,” said the filmmakers, adding that “White Plastic Sky” is “dealing with uncomfortable questions and offering just as uncomfortable answers through a deep emotional journey.”
Bánóczki and Szabó’s “Les Conquerants” played at Sundance’s New Frontier in 2012, and their following short, “Leftover” won prizes at Clermont-Ferrand festival and was nominated for best animated short at the Cesar Awards in 2016.