“Schirkoa” the dystopian animated film voiced by Asia Argento

The next animated feature film Shirkoa, based on the award-winning short film by director Ishan Shukla, chose Asia Argento (Agony), Golshifteh Farahani (Extraction) and Jim Sarbh (Made in Heaven) to voice her leading roles, flanked by French singer-songwriter and actress Soko (Little Fish), King Khan and the Shrines frontman Arish Ahmad Khan, director Gaspar Noe (Climax) and actor-musician Piyush Mishra (Dream).

Shirkoa is set in a bizarre dystopian world of the same name, where citizens walk around with paper bags over their heads to dissolve political, cultural and religious differences, and a bored employee may have accidentally sparked a revolution.

“This film is a metaphorical reaction to the world I live in today. Although the short film served as a good testing ground for animation history and technique, it only scratched the surface of the larger conflict between the two dimensions of Schirkoa's world: politics and faith. The conflict I feel can only be meaningfully explored in a long form, ”Shukla said.

Shukla is directing the project, which will begin production this spring. Director Red Cigarette Media (India) animation studio is producing; co-producers are Dissidenz Films 'Tran-Bich Quan (France), Rapid Eye Movies' Stephan Holl (Germany) and Chan Gin Kai's Silver Media Group (Singapore). The film will be developed using Epic Games' Unreal Engine.

The 2016 short was selected for more than 120 film festivals and won more than 30 awards, including the awards for the best animated short film at Venice Film Week, LA Shorts Fest and Oaxaca FilmFest, and Best of Show at SIGGRAPH Asia's Computer Animation Festival, making the long list for the 2017 Academy Awards. Shirkoa is available for viewing on Vimeo.

[Source: Variety]