One hundred years in the future, humanity is facing the consequences of the environmental degradation they’ve wrought: at the age of 50, every citizen is voluntarily transformed into a tree so that they might supply oxygen to a withering world. Stefan (Tamás Keresztes) is at peace with all of this until his wife Nóra (Zsófia Szamosi) decides to metamorphize before her time. Tearing the social contract to shreds, Stefan abandons the relative safety of the plastic dome encasing Budapest and races across a devastated landscape on a rescue mission to save Nóra.
Fashioning their sci-fi narrative from extensive interviews with botanists and other scientists, Tibor Bánóczki and Sarolta Szabó employ rotoscoped animation that recalls previous mind-benders like A Scanner Darkly to render a richly detailed dystopia. Recognizing that humanity is teetering at the precipice of a climate cataclysm, White Plastic Sky is speculative fiction that serves as a clarion call for us to consider concerns greater than our own and rethink our relationship with the world. It offers spectacle to behold, and a warning to be heeded.
Grand Competition Feature Film, Berlin 2023
Series Media Partner
Tamás Keresztes, Zsófia Szamosi, Géza Hegedűs D., Judit Schell, István Znamenák
Hungary/Slovakia
2023
Altered States
In Hungarian with English subtitles
At Vancity Theatre
At The Rio
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Producer
József Fülöp, Orsolya Sipos, Juraj Krasnohorsky
Screenwriter
Tibor Bánóczki, Sarolta Szabó
Cinematography
Tibor Bánóczki, Sarolta Szabó
Editor
Judit Czakó
Production Design
Tibor Bánóczki, Sarolta Szabó
Original Music
Christopher White
Directors
Tibor Bánóczki
Sarolta Szabó (1975, Budapest, Hungary) and Tibor Bánóczki (1977, Sárospatak, Hungary) are a Hungarian filmmaker duo.
After graduating at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Sarolta continued her studies at Royal College of Art and Tibor at the National Film and Television School. Here they started their artistic partnership focusing on animated film projects. In 2010 they moved to France where they completed two animated short films Les Conquérants and Leftover which were selected in numerous festivals such as Sundance, and Clermont-Ferrand. Both films were shortlisted to the César Award. Currently they live and work in Hungary. White Plastic Sky is their first animated feature film.
Filmography: White Plastic Sky (2023)
Sarolta Szabó
Sarolta Szabó (1975, Budapest, Hungary) and Tibor Bánóczki (1977, Sárospatak, Hungary) are a Hungarian filmmaker duo.
After graduating at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Sarolta continued her studies at Royal College of Art and Tibor at the National Film and Television School. Here they started their artistic partnership focusing on animated film projects. In 2010 they moved to France where they completed two animated short films Les Conquérants and Leftover which were selected in numerous festivals such as Sundance, and Clermont-Ferrand. Both films were shortlisted to the César Award. Currently they live and work in Hungary. White Plastic Sky is their first animated feature film.
Filmography: White Plastic Sky (2023)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Calle Málaga
Seventy-nine-year-old María Ángeles lives independently in Tangier's Spanish quarter. When her daughter pressures her into selling her apartment, she refuses to give in, finding in her old age a new resilience and an unexpected romantic connection.
In the Palm of Your Hand
Charming, (over-)confident clairvoyant Professor Karin hits the jackpot when he hears about a beautiful widow whose millionaire husband has just died. But you don't need to be psychic to see that blackmailing a killer may not be his best idea...
The Night Falls
An arrogant, womanizing sports star eventually gets his comeuppance in this jet-black crime drama from director Roberto Gavaldón.
The Blue Trail
77-year-old Tereza makes a break for the Brazilian jungle in this trippy septuagenarian fantasy, the latest from Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro is a quirky picaresque, lushly photographed and filled with mordant humour.
Agatha's Almanac
Shot over six years on vibrant 16mm film, Agatha’s Almanac is an artful documentary portrait of filmmaker Amalie Atkin’s octogenarian aunt, who has fashioned herself an endearingly simple and self-sustaining lifestyle on her Manitoba farm.
The Art of Adventure
The unbelievable adventure story of how painter Robert Bateman and ecologist Bristol Foster drove a Land Rover from Africa to Australia in 1957, developing a love of nature to last a lifetime. An inspirational love letter to the adventure of life itself.