Fishbowl

An absurdist short film featuring a man, a coat hanger and a ladder; they converse against the backdrop of the rise of Communist Russia.

  • Ugrin Vuckovic
    Director
    Lumen, The Colour Red, Gatekeepers
  • Ugrin Vuckovic
    Writer
    Lumen, The Colour Red, Gatekeepers
  • Ugrin Vuckovic
    Editors
    Lumen, The Colour Red, Gatekeepers
  • Ugrin Vuckovic
    Producer
    Lumen, The Colour Red, Gatekeepers
  • Ugrin Vuckovic
    Director of Photography
    Lumen, The Colour Red, Gatekeepers
  • Casey Israelson
    Director of Photography
    The Colour Red, Gatekeepers
  • Ugrin Vuckovic
    Key Cast
    "The Man"
    Lumen, The Colour Red, Gatekeepers
  • Ugrin Vuckovic
    Production Designer
    Lumen, The Colour Red, Gatekeepers
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Genres:
    Absurdist, experimental, silent, short, philosophical, political, psychological
  • Runtime:
    3 minutes 4 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    August 29, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    50 NZD
  • Country of Origin:
    New Zealand
  • Country of Filming:
    New Zealand
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Blackmagic RAW
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4:3
  • Film Color:
    Black & White
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Ugrin Vuckovic

Ugrin Vuckovic, 22, is a young film director and writer who currently lives and works in New Zealand. He is a double-major student of Film and Philosophy at the Victoria University of Wellington and is on his way to complete his Bachelor's Degree.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Fishbowl is built on the significance of the repetition and trivial interests of tradition juxtaposed against the background of radical social change which does away with tradition entirely. Running at 3 minutes and 5 seconds (185 seconds) long - as a silent short film with music and subtitles -, Fishbowl is about a prisoner of war who, in his isolation, relies on his familiarity with the objects which surround him to sustain his own sanity, including a coat hanger and a ladder. His lack of familiarity with the minds of the collective leads to his insanity and therefore to a subsequent moral collapse of society as a whole in spite of superficial prosperity, which is represented through the archive footage of the rise of the Soviet Union. It is an absurdist piece in which narrative is deformed into a stream of consciousness of the main character’s mental developments throughout the film.