458nm (2006)
short movie
Directors: Jan Bitzer . Ilija Brunck . Tom Weber
Producer: Sinje Gebauer
Sound: dAdA - iNN
Title Design: Nina Juric
Additional Texturing / Compositing: Heiko Schneck
Production Company: Filmakademie BW
Screenings . Awards . Nominations:
. Mundos Digitales . 2006 . Best Animation short
. Siggraph . 2006. Special Jury Honors
. Ars Electronica . 2007 . Golden Nica
. La Meko Filmfestival . Stylomat
. 4. International Animated Film Festival ReAnimacja . 2007
Special Achivment in Technique
. ITFS Stuttgart . 2007 . Nomination for Best Student Diploma
. Melbourne International Animation Festival . 2007 . Audience Award
. 4th Anima . Cordoba International Animation Festival . 2007
. Vilnius Film Shorts . 2007 . Best International Animation short
Special Mention of the Student Jury
. Festival Internacional de Cine de Monterrey . 2008
Best Animated Short
. 9th Lucania Film Festival . 2008 . Best Film - Animation Award
. Anima Mundi . 2006
. ohnekohle . 2006
. Milano Film Festival . 2006
. 9th Mecal International Short Film Festival Barcelona . 2006
. Animadrid . 2006
. FIAERio . 2006
. Zebra Poetry Award . 2006
. San Francisco International Animation Showcase
. 3rd short film festival of Santiago de Compostela . 2006
. 8th International trickfilm-weekend Wiesbaden . 2006
. 49. Festival for Documentation and Animated Film Leipzig . 2007
. 20. International Film Festival Braunschweig . 2007
. Interfilm Berlin . 2007
. Film Festival Bolzano . 2007
. San Gio Video Festival . 2007
. Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival . 2007
. 3. International Animation Film Festival Ljubljana . 2007
. 29. International Short Film Festival Clermont-Ferrand . 2007
. 10. Japan Media Arts Festival . 2007
. Bitfilm Festival . 2007
. Tampere Film Festival . 2007
. Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival . 2008
. 4th AnimaBasauri . 2008
. Asolo Art Film Festival . 2008
458nm. Probably the first time the Polynoid collective worked together on a project. The movie was created in 4 months with an absolut minimum of sleep.
Inspired by the documentary ‘Microcosm’, 458nm tells a rather pure story about the essences of life...love, struggle and death.
Flawlessly executed photo-surrealism.
Biomechanical snails act out nature's oldest ritual,
with the most futuristic of details.
The impossible scenario is conveyed
with stunning visual reality, the subtleties of
macro-photography conveying scale.
The film plays with structural conventions,
moving effortlessly from abstraction to
narrative via changes of scale.
A Corvus Corax ex Machina ending warns
that, as in nature, so with machines.
-Rick Sayre . Pixar . for Prix Ars Electronica-
The most stunning of these this year was
awarded the SIGGRAPH 2006 Special Jury Honors,
the 5-minute short 458nm by
Jan Bitzer, Ilija Brunck and Tom Weber.
This was one of the darkest films, both literally and
figuratively, that I’ve ever seen in any ET.
The action is performed by two snails, authentically
organic in their behavior but mechanical in their appearance:
they are constructed out of gears, belts, shafts and turbines.
They encounter each other and engage in the most
passionate lovemaking that one can imagine snails doing,
before experiencing an ending as jarring as that in
the movie Das Boot.
But it’s the look of 458nm that is the most stunning:
the film is mostly a swath of black, punctuated
with the glowing metallic facets of the two snails,
the glistening black earth and the antagonistic
creature that ends the film.
-Chris Landreth for VFXworld.com-
