Dec 6, 2019

NFB to Co-Produce Final Short Film in "Impossible Figures" Trilogy - Exclusive

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) announced today that it is working with the Polish animation production company Animoon to produce Impossible Figures and Other Stories I, the conclusion to Marta Pajek's famous trilogy of short films. The new short film will be screened at the festival in the spring of 2020.

The shorts, whose teasers were released today, combine hand-drawn animation with CG elements and environments, as in the previous films. Each short film is based on an impossible figure as a metaphor for exploring situations that occur in different spaces:

Director Pajek says of his new film:

"Impossible Figures and Other Stories I" is the first part of a trilogy, Impossible Figures and Other Stories I is the first part of a trilogy and, paradoxically, also the final part. The subject, the city, grows not only spatially, but most importantly, it grows in time. With all its consequences. In trying to grasp a subject too large to imagine, it was essential to become part of the small but wonderful community of NFB animators and directors who "wandered" into the utopian corridors of this magnificent institution.

"For the NFB, working with Marta Pajek was exciting and rewarding. She is a cinematic force to be reckoned with and an inspiration to all." Marta spent some months with us at our historic facility just before we moved to downtown Montreal. It was serendipitous to be making a film about the end of civilization while the end of an era is actually happening all around us." [Animoon producer Piotr Szczepanowicz added, "This last film is very special not only because it completes all the themes explored in the trilogy, but also because it marks our first collaboration with the NFB. Their deep understanding of the subject matter and their incredibly creative approach to the artistic challenges of the project made NFB the perfect partner."

The first two short films, Impossible Figures (released in 2016 and 2018 and produced by Animoon), won major honors on the festival circuit, including numerous Grand Prix awards; Impossible Figures and Other Stories II won the Grand Prix at Stuttgart and GLAS in 2017, as well as the Best Polish Film Award at the Animator Film Festival in Poland, while the second film, Impossible Figures and Other Stories III was selected in Competition at last year's Cannes Film Festival, won Best Animated Film at the Krakow Film Festival, the Jury Grand Prix and Audience Award at Animateka, and the top prize at the 2019 edition of Tricky Women.

The upcoming 14-minute film is produced by Piotr Szczepanowicz and Grzegorz Wac?wek of Animoon and Maral Mohammadian of the National Film Production Board of Canada.

See an interview with Pajek about the series: