The project scored 13.17 points, thus taking second place in the category.
The project will receive funding from the Ukrainian State Film Agency in the amount of UAH 1,399,685.00 (around $52 000,0).
"The City of Happy Boys" is a film-parable, around 7 minutes' length, which will be a debut film for the director Yuliia Shalimova. The scriptwriter is Natalia Guzeeva, a well-known children's author.
It’s a story of four boys who build a sand city on the beach. They met at a hotel in a resort town where they stay with their mothers. Boys are of different nationalities and religions, but they do not even think about it. Actually, why should they? It’s so easy to be friends! So they are.
They are interested to talk to each other, play on the beach, swim, and, of course, building a sand city. It could be destroyed very easily. But the boys do not worry about that. They keep the focus on the process of creation, not destruction.
So every evening sea waves sweep the sand city away. And every morning boys rebuild the city again. Together. Each boy brings a part of his world to it. Their imagination jumps with them into this city. They can run through the streets of this city, decorate it, look in all the windows and doors. This is the city of happy boys.
This story is a metaphor for non-toxic coexistence. And it is not only about the obvious – non-sanguinary coexistence of religions of different nations - but also about supporting each other, regardless of the difference of views between people. Staying a human being in any situation and maintaining empathy for the world around us is not that difficult.
To convey those important ideas in the most comprehensible and concise way, we chose the format of the 2D hand-drawn animation with elements of collage and morphing. One image will be transforming into another. It is an allusion to the boys' ideas which are transforming during the rebuilding of the sand city again and again. The film has no dialogues. We watch only the actions of the main characters.
Learn more about the project here.