SIFF 2025: Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass // By Design

Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass
dir. Timothy & Stephen Quay

Somewhere between the mesmerizing, hallucinatory dreams of Jan Švankmajer and the creaking, wooden fantasies of Jiří Barta, the Brothers Quay return to the influence of Polish writer Bruno Schulz, 38 years after their adaptation of Street of Crocodiles. Previously realized in Wojciech Has' The Hourglass Sanatorium, the Quay Brothers approach is even more slippery and dream-like, blending live-action and their trademark stop-motion in a way that dissolves the dividing lines of reality and surrealism, a truly bizarre and at times nightmarish cauldron of grim phantasmagoria that you'll never quite get a handle on. The Quay Brothers know exactly how to lean into just how woozy it all is, and as soon as it starts to feel like you can't quite put the pieces together, it becomes clear it's not all that important - each vignette is a new space to explore a vibrant combination of medium and expression, a brilliant fantasy that never quite begins and never quite ends. Liminal and infinite.

By Design
dir. Amanda Kramer

Can heaven be lonely?
It's not crowded.

A hypnotic oddity, a woozy vision of desire fully dedicated to its utterly bewildering and esoteric atmosphere. To be expected that such fully sent camp surrealism would be met with swaths of negativity and a degree of revulsion, but Amanda Kramer's fetishistic swirl finds itself somewhere between (or perhaps delicately extracted from) In Fabric and Crash, a somber vision of what it means to be human through the seductive veneer of kink and sexuality. Its surface level weirdness almost betrays its deeply tragic melancholy – it asks a lot of its viewer to buy into such an outlandish premise played to such deadpan surrealism, but if you can believe a woman's soul could be transferred to the elegantly carved facets of a designer chair, a world of fascinations opens up. Ultimately a mournful ode to our want to be desired, as people an invisible, unmoving husk hopelessly going through the motions, yearning to be objectified and commodified in a way that grants a sense of belonging and meaning, no matter how ultimately empty it may be. Destroying ourselves and our sense of worth for a fraction of the intense simplicity of uncomplicated gaze. What would you do to be wanted?

SIFF 2025 takes place from May 15-June 1, 2025. Find out more information about the fest here, and find continued coverage here on Step Printed.