Short Film: REALiTy?

REALiTy?

Project Type: Experimental Short Film
Runtime: 24:54
Completion Date: July 2026
Country of Origin: Canada / Poland
Languages: Romani, Polish and English

Synopsis

REALiTy? is an experimental short film exploring confinement, imagination, transformation, and the uncertain boundary between external reality and the inner world.

A woman finds herself imprisoned in a stark and oppressive environment, seemingly trapped within a reality from which there is no escape. Chains, enclosed spaces and isolation define her world. Yet rather than surrendering to her circumstances, she begins to transform her experience through music, movement, imagination and artistic expression.

As the film unfolds, the controlled world of confinement gradually gives way to something more mysterious. Forests, earth, fire, changing costumes, symbolic objects, music and physical movement enter her reality. What initially appears to be an escape becomes increasingly dreamlike, as the boundaries between imprisonment and freedom, darkness and beauty, memory and imagination, the physical world and the mind begin to dissolve.

At the centre of REALiTy? is the idea of creativity as an act of survival. Music and movement become more than artistic expression; they become ways of resisting confinement, reshaping experience and imagining another existence.

But the film deliberately refuses to provide a simple answer.

Has she truly escaped? Has her reality transformed—or has the entire journey taken place somewhere within her own mind?

Blending experimental narrative, music, movement, performance and surreal visual storytelling, REALiTy? invites the audience to enter the woman’s shifting world and ultimately decide for themselves:

What is real?

Language Note

The film incorporates Romani, Polish and English, primarily through music, songs and background dialogue. Understanding the spoken languages is not necessary to follow the story. REALiTy? is primarily communicated through visual storytelling, performance, movement, music and imagery, allowing the film to be experienced across language barriers.

Production

REALiTy? is an independent Canadian-Polish production, written, produced and independently financed by Canadian-Polish multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker Kinga Zak. The film was shot in Poland with a predominantly Polish cast and crew.