No one ever looked at elephants as you do
Title of the project: No One Ever Looked at Elephants as You Do
Estimated budget: 70,000.00 €
Logline:
Pregnancy. Early motherhood. Ouch! Has something grown inside me, or have I grown into Mother Earth?
Description of the main story and poetics:
An extremely intimate insight into early motherhood reveals a bizarre connection to Mother Nature. Plants grow in baby shoes; objects transform into fruits and a compost sings a lullaby. Poetry becomes a visual language to such an extent as to enable the exploration of the organic bond between mother and baby in stop-motion animation.
Concept:
A rather voyeuristic window into a relationship between mother and child reflects the connection to the Universe or to oneself. Unburdened by society, a baby sees the world with new eyes; in such a way I wish the viewer to see familiar objects in a new context. When animated, a printed floral pattern transforming into a meadow is unnoticed by our cognitive minds, but still, it makes sense to our intuitive self. Thus, unlike classical animation, objects and entities will become protagonists and the mishmash of styles will altogether constitute the language of the film. The soundtrack, mostly highlighted by percussion will further enhance the basic life impulse, and ultimately a new voice. An excerpt of the narrated poetry goes as follows:
I started out of nowhere and ended up here
The floor is my couch, you my pilot, the sky is our melody
As soon as I felt your heartbeat in me, I realized it was always there, in my deep organic flesh
Cabbage, spring onions, watermelon, they are all your makeup, you barbaric beauty
I thought you will be everything I couldn’t even imagine, and you are so much more
I beg you to stay longer and play under the daylight magic
No one ever looked at elephants as you do
No one ever saw me as a fountain before
You stretched my stomach, but it’s nothing in comparison to how you’ve enlarged my soul
I will never let go, little one.
Director’s biography:
Sandra is a multimedia artist working in various art & culture fields and participating in independent initiatives abroad. Her animated film Soma was awarded seven times and screened at more than forty festivals worldwide. She was recently selected as a Sarajevo talent for directing. Currently, she is completing her master’s thesis in multimedia and preparing her next animated film.
Presentation of the production company:
Staragara was founded in 2003 in Ljubljana. In addition to feature films, we produce shorts and documentaries. Our movies have been shown at festivals such as Venice, Cannes, Locarno, attracting international attention and audiences worldwide. Apart from continuous cooperation with Italian productions and the countries of former Yugoslavia, we also collaborate with the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Hungary.
List of partners on the project so far/ Amounts already negotiated:
Slovenian Film Center (development of an animated project) – 11,500.00 €
Staragara self-investment in development – 6,000.00 €
