Izabela Plucinska – Retrospective & Q&A

Izabela Plucinska is one of the most interesting and innovative independent animators working today. Over the last 25 years MIAF has screened most of her films, and watched Izabela breathe life into flat tablets of coloured plasticine. As those characters took on more intense and engaging physical forms we’ve watched in quiet awe as Izabela found ways to raise them up and form them into fully three dimensional characters – living, breathing, feeling, struggling, thinking, plotting, running, and hiding, right before our eyes.

Her latest films take these characters and these worlds to a whole other plane though. Their capacity to move and morph, to blend and reform and shape-shift is next level animating – an evolution that you can witness again, or anew, as this program takes you through the full breadth of her work.

We are beyond thrilled to be able to bring Izabela to Melbourne to share her work and talk about her techniques, her mastering of the materials she uses to make these films, and the places the stories come from.

Backyard
Izabela Plucinska
Poland, 2’35, 1999
Izabela’s first film in plasticine. The atmosphere in a small neighbourhood gradually darkens as some of the as the shapes of some inhabitants begin to change.

Doppelganger
Izabela Plucinska
Poland, 3’33, 2000
Identity can be as simple a thing as wondering what you will see when you turn the key in the door, look in the mirror, or look across the table.

On The Other Side
Izabela Plucinska
Poland, 4’25, 2002
A textural pastiche brought to life through the lens of a lonely photographer who dreams himself into his photos.

Breakfast
Izabela Plucinska
Poland, 2’18, 2006
At the breakfast table a man and a woman struggle to connect… until a wind blows through the room and turns their life on its ear.

Josette Und Ihr Papa
Izabela Plucinska
Poland, 7’56, 2010
Young Josette navigates a strange and unsettling tension that has filled the family home in the wake of her mother moving to the country for a short stay.

Afternoon
Izabela Plucinska
Poland, 2’34, 2012
They live together, but separately, held together by a thin thread – but the Gods have plans and an unfortunate accident leads them back to each other again.

Darling
Izabela Plucinska
Poland, 6’53, 2013
How does it feel to lose your memory? In this labyrinth of fear, a stranger becomes a confidante, and the home turns into a trap.

Sexy Laundry
Izabela Plucinska
Poland, 12’02, 2015
How can the flames of desire be rekindled after 25 years of married life? An erotic comedy with a rococo-kitsch edge. A National Film Board of Canada co-production.

Evening
Izabela Plucinska
Poland, 2’30, 2016
A quarrelling couple join forces to smash the whole household to pieces. But can people who argue so passionately really just pick up the pieces as if nothing happened?

Joko
Izabela Plucinska
Poland, 15’23, 2024
Joko, a lowly worker, finds himself forced into an increasingly sinister world of truly bizarre servitude.

Porridge Monster
Izabela Plucinska
Poland, 9’33, 2025
Breakfast is the battleground between two parents, as their child watches on and tries to imagine how things could be different.

This session is classified: Unclassified (M) Mature, not recommended for viewers under 15 years.