Suspended Animation
Suspended Animation

Summary/Abstract: Two years ago a brash, witty, low-budget animated feature, replete with rap speech patterns, attained almost instant cult status after its release, selling something over 100,000 tickets at the Hungarian box-office. The District was a debut film for both its codirectors, Áron Gauder and Emil Novák. The whores, cops, petty criminals and Roma who feature in the film are all drawn in twodimensional photorealist-style animation. The leading figures are a group of teenagers (accurately reflecting Budapest’s Eighth District’s ethnic mix) who use a time machine to travel back into prehistory and gun down whole herds of mammoths, because their giant corpses, in the distant future, will turn into oil, and the oil into lots of money, which, with Osama bin Laden himself being holed up in the district, will give the “Eightfers” some say in how the world goes on. The main character, a Roma Romeo by the name of Ritchie Lakatos, his pockets lined with dosh, is now at last in a position—against his father’s total opposition—to pursue his Julia, who comes from a family who are their deadly rivals. Needless to say, the gushing new oil wells in the Eighth District set off a string of international repercussions. The film was successful not just at the box office but on the festival circuit as well, carrying off the top award for the best feature film at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, which is the Cannes of animation.[...]

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