Welcome to IFI Encounters, a new recurring programming strand that aims to highlight films from the international festival circuit that otherwise might go unseen by IFI audiences. The films will always be recent, unconventional, and (we think) exceptional.

The year is 2123. Faced with diminishing resources, the human race can only survive through a trade-off: at the age of fifty, every citizen is gradually turned into a tree. When Stefan discovers that his beloved wife Nora has voluntarily signed up for donating her own body before her time, he sets out on a journey to save her at all costs.

Animating duo Tibor Bánóczki and Sarolta Szabó created their dystopian epic using rotoscoping techniques, and developed the screenplay with geologists, botanists, and meteorologists. The result is a visually breath-taking, and deeply moving eco-fantasy.

Notes by David O’Mahony.