Mandatory Presence

"Mandatory Presence" is a film debut by Adam Ziajski featuring one actor whose presence is multiplied in many characters. The movie consists of 12 autonomous film impressions presented in the form of an illustrated diary. It is a personal record of the experience of social isolation in the first weeks of the pandemic.
The protagonist is a lonely middle-aged man who moves into a claustrophobic apartment. There, he spends his weeks engaging in more and more absurd activities amidst post-apocalyptic visions of the end of the world. Through the voice of the narrator, he touches upon personal or even intimate themes, and is also a close observer of social behavior. In his reflections there is a poignant seriousness of observations captured in an ironic and grotesque form. In his fantasies he eventually ends up in a COVID hospital, which turns out to be an eerie "madhouse".
The film wittily and subversively universalizes the experience of loneliness by encapsulating it in the form of a contemporary fairy tale.