Fog drifts across an endless white space as children step inside, hesitant and curious. What feels eerie, almost sci-fi, becomes a playful mystery. Playtopia is an art-twisted reality show staged by a mother anxious about her child’s future, who builds a boundless white box, a silent costumed assistant, and the Playtopia Machine as her stand-in. In this surreal arena, children imagine society, form alliances, debate politics, inequality, God, even death, and turn the void into a cardboard city. Their video diaries reveal everyday lives behind the play. Intercut are collages by the mother-artist: fragments of childhood photos, historical images, and paintings. Analog textures yield to AI images which open the children’s play onto larger questions of history, ideology, and memory.

Animator / Bara Jichova Tyson    Costumes / Petra Vlachynská    Dop / George Chiper-Lillemark    Editor / Alexandr Kashcheev    Set designer / Petra Vlachynská    Sound / Jun Mizumachi    Story / Bara Jichova Tyson    Writer / Bara Jichova Tyson

Completion date / June 2027

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