Ari Folman‘s “The Congress,” his animated, sci-fi followup to “Waltz With Bashir,” has been in development for a while now, with early footage unveiled last year at the Cartoon Movie symposium in Lyons, France, and we’re glad to see it’s still alive, moving forward and set to start shooting. But before we get to the casting, here’s what we know so far.
Based on the short story “The Futurological Congress” by Stanislaw Lem (best known as the author of “Solaris,” which was obviously made into a movie, twice: once by the great Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972 and once by Steven Soderbergh in 2002) about a man ” “who is propelled into a world where hallucinogenic drugs have replaced reality,” the actual film seems to have taken a kernel of that idea and expanded it into a story about “the world of an actress (Robin Wright). She’s in decline because the studios just sampled her and they kept using her image. She walks into the future, which is a world that is totally controlled by the manufacture of psychiatric pharmacology products.” Sounds meta, trippy and pretty awesome. And while we presume Wright is still attached, one more excellent young actor has confirmed he’s come aboard.
Speaking with We Got This Covered, Kodi Smit-McPhee, who gave solid turns in “The Road” and “Let Me In,” has revealed he’s currently in rehearsals for the pic. “I’m also doing a film called ‘The Congress’ which is just in the rehearsal process and I think next week we’ll be shooting. I don’t really know how to explain it, I think it’s sci-fi and futuristic.”
This is some great news. We’re big fans of Folman’s “Waltz With Bashir” (and the excellent Max Richter score that accompanied it), not to mention that we think McPhee is one of the finest young actors around right now. No word yet on other casting or when we might see this but that news should be coming forth shortly.
