Salamander

Rudolf brews moonshine in his cellar. We see the whole process of making the alcohol. After that, he pours the hot brandy over a salamander, that wiggles in pain, emits poison and dies. Rudolf then stuffs it in a brandy bottle, takes it and goes into the living room. He pours himself a glass and after drinking it an anthropomorphic salamander that appeared on the table starts talking to him. Rudolf and salamander start talking about alcohol, love, pain and Rudolf's questionable life decisions. Salamander acts like his therapist and answers very cynically and even teases Rudolf, who has difficulty distinguishing between reality and illusions and constantly hallucinates heavily. At some point, Rudolf has enough and gets up and starts walking towards the stairs leading down to his basement. Salamander quickly crawls under his feet and trips him. Rudolf falls down the stairs and kills himself and a dead salamander falls out of the broken bottle.

Director’s statement
Salamander spirit is an old Slovene alcoholic drink which is believed to cause hallucinations. I wanted to use this controversial drink, which is heavily connected to alcoholism and drug abuse to present these problems. Because the drink is considered an "authentic Slovene drug" I decided to put the setting into a traditional Slovene environment and present a global problem on a local level. Alongside alcoholism, I will be delving into the problems of domestic abuse, violence and animal abuse, which will be accompanied by ethnic and traditional motives and Christian symbolism to show the contrast and irony of the situation. Even though most Slovenes are familiar with the topic and motives, I believe its peculiarity and relatibility will be interesting even to a wider audience. Dialogue between Rudolf and salamander will play big role in the film. I chose puppet stop-motion technique because its grotesque realism fits with the portrayal of gritty problems in the real world.