A story about a fishermen, who pulled a skeleton out of the frozen lake. He tries to escape from the skeleton, so he hides in the dark, where he looks for comfort in cheap entertainment. Yet the reality scratches on the window and the fisherman´s hiding place quickly becomes a place full of nightmares. Manipulation, humanity, puppetry - those are the main themes of this film.

The idea for The Fishermen came to my mind about a year ago. I wanted to examine the meaning of stop-motion and connect it with the real world and current issues. We live in the time, when we are willingly giving out our identities into the hands of the invisible. A big portion of “us” is living somewhere in the iClouds above us, and there isn't any place for what is actually “real”. Since the topic is quite difficult to explain in silent movie and animation at the same time I have to adapt the visual style to help express the meanings through materials. Natural materials are fighting with objects from plastic. Modern devices are literally eating through vintage furniture and in the middle of it all stays our hero - the fisherman.

STORY + SCRIPT + DIRECTOR: Bára Anna Stejskalová 
PRODUCERS: Ondřej Šejnoha, Marek Dusil
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Lourenco Sasseti Correa
SOUND: Karel Štulo
EDITOR: Ilona Malá

MUSIC: Prázdné hory jsou plné větru a deště
Christian Farell, Karel Štulo
ART DIRECTOR: Bára Anna Stejskalová
VFX SUPERVISION:  Jakub Ježek
SET SUPERVISION: Ondřej Slavík

© 2021 made by J.M. with love