In postproduction Latest update: 19 April 2023
Playtopia
Playtopia
Czech Republic, Romania, United States, North Macedonia / 80 min / English
Documentary / Second film
In postproduction Latest update: 19 April 2023
Playtopia
Playtopia
Czech Republic, Romania, United States, North Macedonia / 80 min / English
Documentary / Second film
Genre
Social Issue
Documentary
Youth/Teen
Children Live Action
Director
Bara Jichova Tyson
Bara Jichova Tyson
Producer
Kristina Husová - Cinepoint
Co-producer
Bara Jichova Tyson - Incomplete Pictures
Cristina Hanes - deFilm
Bara Jichova Tyson - Incomplete Pictures
Ivana Shekutkoska - Minimal Collective
Support
Creative Europe - MEDIA
Romanian Film Center
Czech Audiovisual Fund
Czech Ministery of Culture
JB Fund
Film contact
Alice Tabery - Cinepoint
tabery.alice@gmail.com, +420732883260
In a vast white studio staged like a reality show, 8 children build a world from scratch. Playful and uncanny, Playtopia reveals how children’s imagination unsettles the worlds we take for granted.
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 / November 2027
Release date / 17 January 2028
Photogallery
