Babu in the Night City

A girl aged eight on a night trek through the city's periphery in search of a lost parrot.

Director: Petr Vodička

Babu v nočním městě

produced by Kuli Film (CZ), 8Heads Productions (CZ), Studio Anima (CZ), MPhilms (SK)

A children's film noir detective story with sci-fi and mystery elements - a modern fairy tale with the infusion of the street culture like rap and graffiti.

Following the mysterious disappearance of her dad, 8-year-old Babu is often alone at home with her parrot. When a thief steals the parrot, Babu sets off on a night-time expedition to save her animal friend. During her journey, she finds unexpected allies: an unsuccessful rapper, a night jogger and a homeless man. Together, they must overcome the mad Professor X who is able to transform humans into animals and vice versa.

The script is based on director’s successful radio and theatre plays.

Director’s statement

The story, which had already been produced as a theatre and a radio play, provides for me a solid torso onto which one can add some flesh of a puppetry treatment. When writing the script, I am ready to enrich the plot with new settings and characters, strengthen the detective story frame and also to provide more space for artistic elements in order to ensure that the planned fusion of puppets and street-art inspiration takes place.

I am of the opinion that for the age group it is intended for, the roughly 75-minute length is in no way limiting, and using my extensive theatre experience I think it is possible to tell a story to its full potential without losing anything in terms of depth.

I see in ‘Babu In the Night City‘ the possibility of creating a modern fairy tale which takes place in a contemporary setting, but at the same time, doesn‘t reject the magic which forms the basis of fairy tales. There is an opportunity here to tell a humorous story thanks to interesting characters and an element of play enabled by the puppetry. At the same time, it carries a deeper message which is relevant to today and is not purely a shallow form of moralizing. I believe that ‘Babu In the Night City‘ offers, thanks to its approach and a universal message, the potential to link the child audience with that of the adult one.

We aim to make multi-layered dialogues linked to the detective story plot to be interesting for the adult audience as well.