Writer/director Pierre Renverseau’s short film Zmiena, which was inspired by the classic Franz Kafka story The Metamorphosis, is currently making the festival rounds and racking up the award wins, and today we’re proud to share an EXCLUSIVE clip from the film! You can check it out in the embed above, where the clip is followed by the trailer. The film is presented in the French language and the video has English subtitles, but you can still get a feel for the film’s unsettling atmosphere even if you don’t understand the dialogue.
Described as “insane, oppressive, and intense”, Zmiena has the following synopsis:
Greg, locked in his room, watches his body slowly turn into something inexplicable and terrifying, while hearing strange calls coming from the outside. A free adaptation of Franz Kafka’s classic horror/drama short story, “The Metamorphosis“, focusing on the one and only character Greg.
Greg is played by Rurik Sallé (Dead Shadows), who also co-produced the film and composed the score.
The FX in Zmiena were provided by Jacques-Olivier Molon. The body mutations Greg undergoes in the short were accomplished without a single digital enhancement, it’s all old school, high level on-set effects and prosthetics.
Zmiena won Best Film and Best Director awards at the Metropolis Film Festival in Italy, while Sallé won the Best Performance award at the Chaos Film Festival in Ohio. Sallé also won the Best Soundtrack award at the Santiago Film Festival in Chile. You can listen to the entire soundtrack he wrote for the short on Bandcamp.
The next festival stop for Zmiena is the Razor Reel Flanders Film Festival, the only Flemish genre film festival, which will be held from October 28th through November 6th.
The poster for the film can be seen below, along with a few images of Sallé’s character.