Műanyag égbolt / White Plastic Sky (Tibor Bánóczki & Sarolta Szabó, 2023, Hungary, 111 min)
In the near future, there are no more animals or plants on Earth and the remaining humans are living under a plastic dome. The price for their continuing survival is very high: at the age of 50, they are implanted with a special seed that turns them into a tree which will provide oxygen and food for the community. A young man, Stefan, accepts this system – until the day his wife Nóra decides to give up her life and undergo voluntary implantation. Driven by his love for her, Stefan decides to break the rules of society in order to save her.
Animation duo Tibor Bánóczki and Sarolta Szabó created their dystopian epic using rotoscoping techniques. The screenplay was developed with contributions from geologists, botanists and meteorologists, thus providing its fantasy-laden story with a solid, scientific grounding. A deeply moving eco-fantasy that deals head-on with the climate apocalypse threatening life on Earth, Műanyag égbolt is a film imbued with the melancholy of those most aware of how close humankind is to extinction. Although, as is the case for the couple at the center of this beguiling love story, this burden is lightened by their keen sense of the world’s beauty.
