https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-last-film-by-jan-svankmajer-insects–4#/
Campaign story
After five long years of preparations, legendary Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer is almost ready to start filming his final feature film titled Insects, a misanthropic and surreal imagery echoing Kafka and the Čapek Brothers.
Jan Švankmajer (81) and his long-time producing partner Jaromír Kallista (77) are teaming up to make their last feature-length film.
A local pub in a small town. It’s Monday and the bar is closed, chairs are turned up on the tables. The pub is empty except for six amateur actors sitting in a corner. They’ve met to rehearse “The Insect Play” by the Čapek brothers. On a raised platform across the room we see a stage, set for Act II of the play. As the rehearsal progresses, the characters of the play are born and die with no regard to time. The actors slowly become one with them and some of them experience frightening transformations…
“The Čapek brothers’ play is very misanthropic. I’ve always liked that — bugs behave as a human beings, and people behave as insects. My screenplay extends this misanthropy further while also reflecting Franz Kafka and his famous Metamorphosis.
Jan Švankmajer is eager to start filming as soon as possible. He’s very busy visiting entomological auctions, buying various kinds of bugs, doing rehearsal shots with them and so on. But both Jan Švankmajer and Jaromír Kallista have a condition – that the film needs to be fully funded before they start shooting. They would like to make it with a certain grace, not having to hastily secure funding in the process. And to do that, they need your help!
We believe that this last film belongs to all of you – Jan’s loyal fans from around the world. And if you decide to support this film, you’ll get to see it right when it’s finished. That’s why we chose crowdfunding over a maze of distributors, sales agents and so on.
“The civilization we live in has little interest in authentic artistic creation. What it needs is well-working advertisement, the iconographic contemporary art, pushing people towards more and more mass consumption.
It gets increasingly difficult to fund independent art that scrutinizes the very core of our society. Who would deliberately support their own critics? We make a film every five or six years not because of a lack of ideas, but due to the lack of funds to back up our projects. Crowdfunding may be the way to change this.” (JŠ)
We think this is a great opportunity to break a few industry habits but most importantly, deliver this film directly to you. That’s what we want the most, everything else is only a tool how to achieve it.
“To those of you who choose to support our effort, I want to thank you. I promise you that I will invest my entire body and soul into this last feature film of mine. After all, that’s the only way I know how to create.” (JŠ)
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-last-film-by-jan-svankmajer-insects–4#/
“The rabbit eats his own sawdust stuffing, the jam is full of tacks and the dollhouse becomes Alice’s prison, as Mr. Švankmajer’s extraordinary film explores the story’s dark undercurrents.” – The New York Times
“It’s an astonishing film, a rather Lynchian journey into a dream-world.” – The Daily Telegraph
Alice has received the best feature film award at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in 1989.
Probably the most famous of Jan’s shorts, Dimensions of Dialogue is an uncompromising look on some of the more negative aspects of how we communicate. Best to see for yourself.
Via Indiegogo
