Director

Jeff Tudor, Steven de Beul, Ben Tesseur

Netherlands, Germany, Belgium | 2021 | 82 min | No Dialogue

• Producer Bruno Felix, Femke Wolting, Adrienne Liron, Janneke van de Kerkhof, Romy Roolf
• Production Company Submarine, 3 minutes West, Lunanime, MotionWorks
• Screenplay Jeff Tudor, Steven de Beul, Ben Tesseur
• Cinematography Tristan Oliver BSC
• Editing Michiel Reichwein NCE
• Sound
• Cast Michaela DePrince, Daniel Camargo and Vito Mazzeo, Darcey Bussell, Irek Mukhamedov
• Contacts

  Urban Distribution International
  

  sales@urbangroup.biz | irene@urbangroup.biz

About the Film

Coppelia is modern cinematic work that’s adapted from a special ballet performance by the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam in 2016, which itself borrowed comical events found in the original ballet, which was first presented in Paris in 1870.

This film is entrancing, with colorful shades and symbolism as well as a tendency of being visually playful. It breaks boundaries between real-life actors performing dance numbers and vividly painted décor pieces in Disney and Pixar styles.

It’s a hybrid world of cinematic and three-dimensional magic, reminiscent of Loving Vincent (screened at the 1st edition of GFF), that creates complex, immersive arrangements of visual elements that showcase a passionate love story between the young Swan and Franz without a single word exchanged.

Instead, the operatic music and the dramatically choreographed dances, which place every group within its own mismatched geography, are enough to inspire curiosity around the future of a secluded, rural town that is invaded by an obsessive plastic surgeon who’s enacting an evil plan that involves ‘creating’ a perfect robot called Coppelia, a doll who can love and be happy while being strong, narcissistic, and intelligent.

The problem is that Dr. Coppelius must ‘hunt’ real souls to extract their humanity. So, he builds an extraordinary factory that targets its symbols: the baker, the barber, the icecream seller, and the female mayor. As for Franz, he is a symbol of pure love who must pass a loyalty test to be with his beloved Swan, before she saves him from the attempt to steal his heart to give life to Coppelia.

While Franz is white, Swan is dark-skinned, which adds racial diversity in addition to a moral rhetoric infused with awareness about gender, race, mixed European societies, social solidarity, and communal triumph to this story about the common struggle against evil.

Ziad Khuzai