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Official selection
International Film Festival Rotterdam 2024
Director
Niles Atallah
Writer
Niles Atallah
Cast
Andrea Gomez, Daniela Ossa, Javiera Reyes, Hormazábal Rocío, Blanca Schlager, Ignacio Silva
contact
Compañía de Cine
ANIMALIA PARADOXA is about an amphibious humanoid’s search for water in a labyrinthian post-apocalyptic landscape. In the opening iris shot, a curtain of plastic is pulled back by a decrepit mannequin hand. On a dusty editing machine, a poem appears: “The mass extinction crept unheard. Death’s Dominion began without a word...” The image is raw and crackled and soon a montage of disaster sets the tone for this strange and bewildering story of longing. From the mind of filmmaker Niles Atalah (REY), genre cinema and arthouse meld to create a singular collage-like invention that will defy all expectations. A radical and inventive filmmaker, director Niles Atalah is the co-founder of the boundary-pushing Chilean production company Diluvio with artists Joaquin Cociña and Cristóbal Leon (LA CASA LOBO). A hybrid of styles and techniques, ANIMALIA PARADOXA combines live action, dance, sculpture, and stop-motion animation in a dreamlike structure liberated from convention.
By embracing decomposition as a tool of metamorphosis, ANIMALIA PARADOXA’s themes are reflected not only in the story, but in the construction of the image itself. With a keen attention to detail, few post-apocalyptic visions have been so expansive. The world is dusty and windy, overflowing with discarded treasures, like unspooled celluloid and discarded doll heads. The film connects the concerns of climate anxieties with our biology as it examines the ways in which bodies are transformed by our surroundings, particularly amidst environmental collapse. With limited dialogue, the story is shaped by observation, while the narrative thrust is driven by the protagonist’s yearning for the sea. Though experimental in nature, the movie is anchored by the heartfelt and dance-like performance by Andrea Gómez. A truly unique cinematic experience, each scene of ANIMALIA PARADOXA brims with imagination, evoking the surrealism and textures of Jan Švankmajer, the dream-like vitality of Lucian Freud, and poetic underwater images of Jean Painlevé. – Justine Smith
Showings
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