Welcome to Schirkoa, a futurist city-state which takes its motto, “To be alike is the way of life”, to its logical though extreme conclusion by obligating all of its citizens to wear numbered bags over their heads. This way, having dispensed with such complicated matters as personal names, skin color or pimples, all Schirkoans are created equal under their god, Lord O. At least, that’s what most of them believe. Including 197A, a mid-level cog in the gray city’s bureaucracy and an aspiring politician who has recently fallen into favor with the Intellectuals, the leading party with dictatorial tendencies. They look less favorably upon his liaison with 242B, a prostitute in the Blue District – think Amsterdam’s Red Light District tinged with BLADE RUNNER. She dreams of a free, bagless life beyond the borders of Schirkoa, in the mystical land of Konthaqa where strange, multi-colored mutant hybrids allegedly enjoy existence to its psychedelic fullest. Through a curious turn of events of an almost divine nature it’s not her though, but 197A that is going to be forced into exile and onto an odyssey that’ll radically transform him in more than one way…

Strange is only one of many possible adjectives to describe Ishan Shukla’s debut feature. It’s also fearlessly ambitious, thought-provoking, political, metaphysical… and pretty wild! The truly unique visual animation style was entirely created using Unreal Engine, best known for such videogames as Fortnite or Final Fantasy VII. With an impressive, if again pretty odd voice cast including Golshifteh Farahani, Soko, Gaspar Noé, Lav Diaz and Asia Argento as the cynical, foul-mouthed mermaid Lies.