A twelve-year-old Michal was born with a cleft lip. He feels inadequate because of his deformed face. His only friend Ondra convinces him to join a street gang to finally break free from a position of an outsider. Two friends have one afternoon to show they have what it takes to pass the admission to the gang. Michal desperately wants to prove he is good enough, but the tempting adventure suddenly turns into an initiation ritual into adulthood.
Days Off is a short film, an homage to the puppet and city. By combining puppet animation and live action it builds a certain strange kind of reality, a reality that is based in the real world. It is an audiovisual testimony using the language of surrealism, satire, parody, irony and gallows humor, a dark mirror reflecting today’s world.
