Redemption
Date:
January 9, 2023
Redemption
Logline
The arrival of a young stranger bursts the domestic bubble of the seemingly perfect family and the outside world starts to seep in, revealing the comical oddness of the family members and their dysfunctional relationships.
Synopsis
Teenage girl Agata lives with her mother Olivia and father Aleksander in a luxurious house at the edge of a forest, reminiscent of dwelling in a kind of glass terrarium in the middle of a beautiful rustic landscape – safely separated from the reality that surrounds them. While Olivia is overly protective of her daughter and barely lets her venture outside, Aleksander decides to take the family into space. When he comes across an ad for a commercial trip to Earth orbit, he’s sure his perfect family ticks all the required boxes to be selected for the trip, except for one: the competition is open to families of four only.
That’s when a young man, Julian, enters the family household. Before they know it, their daily routine is disrupted and chaos begins to set in. The rules are broken, strangers enter the house, and slowly but surely the Kralj family members are pushed out of a little bubble they had created for themselves. In contrast to Aleksander and Olivia’s discomfort, Agata quickly embraces her newfound freedom. With Julian’s presence, the mechanical and empty relationships of the dysfunctional family are exposed and inevitably begin to change.
Director’s Profile
Sonja Prosenc is a writer and director. After her feature films The Tree (2014) and History of Love (2018), which was awarded in the Crystal Globe Competition at Karlovy Vary IFF 2018, the dark comical drama Redemption will be her third feature. Her first two feature films received numerous awards at festivals around the globe and were official Oscar entries for Slovenia in 2016 and 2020. Sonja was selected by Cineuropa as one of eight most promising European female film directors and was presented in the Eurimages’ Gold Album of 50 female directors of the last 20 years in 2020. Her distinctive and poetic approach to film language has been appreciated by cinephiles and film critics alike, but she also likes to venture into genre film; in 2019, her short comedy called Paradise received a national Best Short Film Award. In 2022 she directed her first TV series Trigrad,, presented at Series Mania in France, at Sarajevo Film Festival, SeriesKamp in Germany, and nominated for Heart of Europe Award in Poland.
Company Profile
The Monoo production house is characterised by distinctive voices in film. Their films aim to tell personal and intimate stories against a backdrop of relevant social issues. They can be poetic and visually stunning, cleverly comical or lyrical but always original. Critically acclaimed and internationally awarded films enjoy strong recognition at home as well – in addition to the national awards, The Tree, The History of Love, Son were also presented as Oscar candidates.
Our aim is to create films with teams that bring together talents from all over the continent and open up new opportunities for collaboration; History of Love by Sonja Prosenc as the first co-production between Slovenia and Norway, joined by Italy, was selected for the Eurimages Gold Album. After our first and successful foray into genre, with the awarded comedy Paradise, we continue to build on the comedic sensibility and combine it with the strongly established artistic vision of our filmmakers in our next feature film Redemption.