Currently in the fine-tuning the script and financing stages of his Untitled Western period pic, and now in the post Goodbye Solo phase (the theatrical run is in it’s final weeks/month with the DVD release coming out this August 25th), Ramin Bahrani will be making a trip out the Venice Film Festival for two reasons: he is one of three members on the international jury for first works, and second, he’ll be presenting a short film entitled, PLASTIC BAG which will premiere as the opening night film of Corto Cortissimo (the short film section). For those lucky enough to be in the city of canals and rubber boots, you might want to circle the date and time of the 7th of September at 17:00 at Sala Perla.
The eighteen minute short takes place in a not too distant future, where a Plastic Bag goes on an epic journey in search of its lost Maker, wondering if there is any point to life without her. The Bag encounters strange creatures, brief love in the sky, a colony of prophetic torn bags on a fence and the unknown. To be with its own kind, the Bag goes deep under the oceans into 500 nautical miles of spinning garbage known as the North Pacific Trash Vortex. Will our Plastic Bag be able to forget its Maker there? Here is a still from the short and an example of the unnatural phenomenon.
The film is one of eleven unique short films that comprise the new online series Futurestates, presented by PBS’ ITVS (The Independent Television Service). I’m thinking that the short will find its way into other festivals and we’ll eventually get more info on the initiative probably in the new year.
With “Plastic Bag”, Bahrani might have crossed into a similar vein to Albert Lamorisse’s Le Ballon rouge – a journey that follows an inanimate object that gets carried over by way of air and has a will of its own. The plastic bag idea actually ties in with a brief scene in Chop Shop, where the camera traces the route of just such a thing to the backdrop of a junkyard that is mountain high in used car parts. I’m looking forward in seeing how he applies such life form characteristics in examining the life “pollution” cycle of the dreaded plastic bag.
Written along with “sustainability consultant” Jenni Jenkins, the short sees Bahrani work with his regular cinematographer Michael Simmonds (we can view his work in the upcoming Robert D. Siegel Sundance dramedy Big Fan) and is produced by Gigantic Pictures’ Jason Orans and Brian Devine, and Lucky Hat Entertainment’s Stephen Bannatyne exec-produces. Sigur Ros’ Kjartan Sveinsson provides the original score.
