Home is the most incomprehensible place of all. What is hidden in a traveler's suitcase, why does an angel ride a bicycle and what is written in a bird's eye? No one can explain it.
After many years, a woman returns to her childhood home on a remote island, carrying a long-kept secret in her suitcase. As she enters the small town, she struggles to connect with the surroundings of her past. The people she meets, who were once familiar to her, now seem far away and reflect her own sense of displacement. When she arrives at her old house, she is haunted by memories of her father, a man who was charming when he was sober, but destructive when he was drunk. Her father's hidden desires and his strange affection for his male friends left her mother feeling isolated and abandoned, deepening the fractures in the family. In this remote town, a man dressed as an angel roams the streets. In addition, a mysterious bird becomes her guide, leading her on a journey through her childhood memories and the secrets of her family history.
Director’s statement
For the last 10 years I have lived far away from home. Every time I return to my parents' house in Croatia, it feels like an eerie experience. I realize that I am returning as a stranger, as someone who only superficially looks like my old self. I found it difficult to fit into the old world, which didn't seem to have changed at all, as if it had been frozen in time along with the old memories.
After being traumatized and confused as a child, I fled my troubled home. Now, as an adult, I try to understand the past from a new perspective, a perspective full of empathy, compassion and humor.
Although the story is told from a personal perspective, it is crafted into a movie with a distinctive graphic style and a surrealistic approach that also leaves room for the viewer's personal interpretation to fill in the blanks with ideas that are meaningful to them.
Country of production
Croatia
Target audience
Adults
Animation technique
Drawing
Estimated budget
240 000 EUR
Funding secured
13 000 EUR - EFI Estonia, NEF France and HAVC (croatian audiovisual centre)
Stage of the project
script development (existing treatment)
Looking for
(Co)producer, distributor, broadcaster, international sales