New Trailer for Ari Folman's Animated Hybrid 'The Congress' Starring Robin Wright

Six years have gone by since Ari Folman's haunting animated war film, Waltz with Bashir, and the wait for his follow-up is finally about to end.  Folman began developing his animated/live-action hybrid The Congress around the same time as 'Bashir' was opening, yet it wasn't until last year's Cannes that the film debuted to audiences to great acclaim. And now with a release set for this summer courtesy of Drafthouse Films, the first U.S. trailer has been released.

Robin Wright stars as a version of herself, an aging actress seeing her career diminish for various reasons, including her own unreliability. Desperate to make some money to support her ailing son (Kodi Smit-McPhee), she sells the rights to her digital image so the studios can make movies using it as often as they like. This gives her the chance to live forever, in a sense, but we also see that it opens the door to something much bigger that she never could have predicted. It's an intriguing premise and Folman appears to have created yet another visually breathtaking and inventive piece of work.

Also starring Jon Hamm, Paul Giamatti, Danny Huston, and Harvey Keitel, The Congress opens August 29th.

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Head-spinning new trailer for Ari Folman's 'The Congress' with Robin Wright

After making a splash at Cannes in 2008 with the brilliant animated war film Waltz with Bashir, Ari Folman is finally making his long-awaited return to the Croisette with The Congress. Drips of information have come out about it over the years, with the most recent update back in 2011 when some early imagery was released, suggesting a film that would look on the surface a lot like 'Bashir' had. But now that that the first trailer is here, it's clear The Congress is something entirely different.

Based loosely on Stanislaw Lem's The Futurological Congress, Robin Wright stars as a version of herself as her career is fading in the digital age. In a bid to stay relevant and secure a means of supporting her son (Kodi Smit-McPhee), she allows her image to be copied and used infinitely, losing her identity in the process. The live-action part of the film features Danny Huston and Harvey Keitel cheesing it up pretty badly, while Wright appears to be on the top of her game. However, it's when the psychedelic animated aspects take over that it truly comes to life, blending 3D animation with what appear to be some wild black & white sci-fi elements.

The Congress will premier at Cannes during the Directors' Fortnight.

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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!

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