New look at 'The Congress', from the director of 'Waltz with Bashir'

Hopefully, patience is a virtue to those of who have been waiting for Ari Folman's follow-up to 2009's animated Waltz with Bashir, one of my favorite films of that year, and chronicles his own experiences during the Lebanon War. Titled The Congress, this rather ambitious sounding film is something totally different, for one it's an adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's short story, The Futurological Congress, and is a mix of live-action and animation.

The story is a big leap from 'Bashir's' personal perspective, in that it's essentially science fiction, centering on an aging actress(Robin Wright) who takes one last job to make ends meet and support her kid(Kodi Smit-McPhee). Her decision has some pretty awful consequences, as the studio takes her image and scans it in order to use her likeness as frequently as they wish, making her irrelevant.  Danny Huston and Paul Giamatti make up a part of the cast as well.

Folman recently revealed to Cinemascopian that the film is progressing along steadily, but we've got darn near a year until we see anything concrete....


 Folman: We just returned from a round of rough-cut screenings in Israel and Europe. The film has 70 minutes of live-action and 50 minutes of animation, the live action part is locked (except for the effects) and the animation is still in the Animatic phase, but most of the designs are done. We’re now going into an insane journey of finishing the animation in 10 months, in five different countries: here, in Jaffa, Poland, Belgium, Germany and Luxemburg. After that, post-production. The movie should be done by January 2013.

As you can see from the newly released image above, the animation style looks to be very similar to that of Waltz with Bashir, and I think it's pretty clear who's who in it. The guy on the right just has to be Danny Huston. For a better look at the progress Folman has made on The Congress, check out this video from last spring. I can't wait!