Premiering in Venice and Toronto, Czech animated feature Alois Nebel is one of the more intriguing animation projects to arrive on screens in recent years. Adapted by director Tomáš Luňák from the dark graphic novels by Jaroslav Rudiš and Jaromír 99 and shot in a rotoscope style similar to the technique used for Waking Life - which is why the observant among you may recognize the face of Karel Roden up above - this is gorgeous animated work for adult audiences.
The end of the eighties in the twentieth century. Alois Nebel works as a dispatcher at the small railway station in Bílý Potok, a remote village on the Czech-Polish border. He's a loner, who prefers old timetables to people, and he finds the loneliness of the station tranquil - except when the fog rolls in. Then he hallucinates, sees trains from the last hundred years pass through the station. They bring ghosts and shadows from the dark past of Central Europe. Alois can't get rid of these nightmares and eventually ends up in sanatorium.
In production for three years now the wait is nearly over. We ran the first gorgeous teaser for the film in June and now the full trailer has followed. Feast your eyes below.In the sanatorium, he gets to know The Mute, a man carrying an old photograph who was arrested by the police after crossing the border. No one knows why he came to Bílý Potok or who he's looking for, but it is his past that propels Alois on his journey...