An Industry Case Study
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: St. Moritz
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Mockumentary
Length of film: 6 minutes
Date: September 2019
Director: Joseph Balaclav
Producer: Raz Sonnenfeld
Writer: Joseph Balaclav, Margarita Linton Balaklav
Cinematographer: Joseph Balaclav
Production Company: Bezalel Academy for Arts and Design
Budget: $5,000
Financing: Rabinovich foundation for the Arts
Shooting Format: HD
Screening Format: 16:9
World Premiere: Anima – The Brussels Animation Film Festival 2020
Awards: NA
Website: NA
The Official Trailer for St. Moritz
Watch The Trailer for St. Moritz directed by Joseph Balaclav
A Short Biography of Joseph Balaclav
Joseph Balaclav is a creative director, animator, and visual storyteller from Jaffa, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Joseph Balaclav, is the director of “St. Moritz” that was showcased in Hollyshorts 2020.
The Joseph Balaclav Interview
indieactivity: What is the film about?
Joseph Balaclav (JB): “St. Moritz” is a story about a son who struggles to clean and sanitize his uncleanable house, only so that he can prove to his eccentric mother that he cares for her. I find myself in a jam every time I am asked what the film is about. It became deeper and stranger the more I worked on it. But to be honest, I would describe it best as a family portrait.
The Idea behind St. Moritz is based on my yearly ritual, coming back to my childhood home on the week before Passover eve (one of the most important- and if I might add, exhausting- Jewish holidays) to try and clean a place which is impossible to clean. Nothing ever gets thrown away… But nevertheless needs to be cleaned for the sake of the ever-so-important tradition.
Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Joseph Balaclav (JB): The world premiere of the film was at the Oscar qualifying animation festival, Anima, in Brussels. Soon after, it was showcased in the BAFTA qualifying film festival, CBFF, in Wales; the Oscar qualifying festival St. Lewis; and in other festivals around the world.
Give the full official synopsis for your film?
Joseph Balaclav (JB): The relationship between a mother and her son is tested when she demands that her son to come back to their filthy home for the aggravating Passover cleaning ritual.
Although the son strives to clean the un-cleanable, his mother fails to see his hard work and insists that he keeps on laboring. The son irately takes off his rubber gloves and leaves his mother to clean the house by herself. As a result, the mother falls ill with vertigo, so the son unwillingly returns home, defeated.
As he removes and destroys all leavened bread and wheat products in their home, he releases them both from the never-ending, yearly burden of filth and agony by burning down the house. Finally, on Passover eve, they reconcile around the clean festive table, surrounded by the remains of their home.
Development & Financing?
Joseph Balaclav (JB): Over the years in the Academy, most of the things I created were fragments from what had yet to become St. Moritz, and before I knew it, I had dozens of illustrations, exercises, shots and half a documentary in the archives just about this one story.
Eventually I wrote the script with my sister Margarita (who is a brilliant director/writer), and it was a fairly intuitive process since the story was already there. We were partners in crime growing up back then, and apparently still are to this very day.
The film was self-financed at first, and received funding from the Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts after its completion.
Production?
Joseph Balaclav (JB): The tighter the schedule, the better. In most cases you feel like you’ve got plenty of time, and then you realize you took an entire week just to make 4 seconds of animation. I heard Ari Folman once compare the animation production process to a car crash. Everything slows down for a thousand frames just like in those horrid seat-belt commercials. I can say for a fact that the process of making an animated film is not far from that.
The production process was based on the timing of everything we did. The script was written and rewritten over a period of about five months, and from there the storyboard was another two. From this point on, the rest was one big roller coaster which lasted for another four months until the very first cut.
Festival Preparation & Strategy?
JB: To be honest, I didn’t really have a strategy. I read as much as I could, made a spreadsheet and learned along the way about the world of film festivals and how they work. I was and still am amazed by how vast everything that surrounds films and filmmakers is, besides the films themselves.
The Release?
JB: Not yet, but soon enough.
Advice from the Filmmaker?
JB: Write about what you know. No one knows about it better than you.
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