Nominated for 2011 European Film Awards
SURVIVING LIFE is the new feature film by internationally acclaimed director and animation godfather, JAN ŠVANKMAJER. Using a mix of cutout animation from photographs and live-action segments, SURVIVING LIFE brings with it another extraordinary offering from Svankmajer's unique and surreal vision, told through the darkly humorous story of a married man who lives a double life in his dreams.
Featuring an eye-popping array of giant snakes, chickens, eggs and feet, which constantly pop out of photographed Czech buildings, SURVIVING LIFE has been described as an offbeat, 'psychoanalytical comedy'. It premiered at the 67th Venice International Film Festival and will be released across the UK on 2 DECEMBER 2011. It has also been nominated for the 24th European Film Awards, which will be presented in Berlin on 3 December 2011.
Eugene (Václav Helšus) leads a double life - one real, the other in his dreams. In real life he has a wife called Milada (Zuzana Kronerová); in his dreams he has a young girlfriend called Eugenia (Klára Issová). Sensing that these dreams have some deeper meaning, he goes to see a psychoanalyst, Dr. Holubova, who interprets them for him, with the help of some argumentative psychoanalytical griping from the animated heads of Freud and Jung.