Our Lady of Rot by Bibi Erjavec

Title: Our Lady of Rot
Original title: Naša Gospa Trohnenja
Year Of Production: 2025
Running Time: 5′ 08″
Country of Production: Slovenia
Target audience: General Audience (Not recommended for children under 14 years old)
Premiere: StopTrik International Film Festival 2025
Technique: Stop-motion (Puppet animation, Clay animation, Animation with wax)
Language: English 

Director: Bibi Erjavec
Production company: Slovene Animated Film Association – DSAF
Co-production: Academy of Fine Arts and Design (ALUO), University of Ljubljana (Master’s thesis film)
Sales / Distribution Company: University of Ljubljana

Request screener (MAIN CONTACT PERSON): Slovene Animated Film Association – DSAF

Synopsis:
We find ourselves in a decrepit world, facing a giant, decaying corpse with a fleshy mouth and a pair of lungs attached to a swathe of pipes. As she claps, the pipes hum and her lungs fill with air. She tells us that decay is so all-consuming that even flesh itself has become a rarity. It’s now everyone’s duty to use what little they have left. She is uniquely cursed with still having enough flesh to speak – a huge responsibility which burdens her greatly. As she claps again, we follow the pipes and find the source of her voice, a workroom of bellows powered by smaller, almost completely bare skeletons. Her monologue grows more frantic and demanding, until the inevitable occurs – a work accident that cripples one of her workers. Intent on punishment, but fearing a public outcry, she covertly scrapes what little flesh the worker has left and discards him to the pile of other bones. As she turns to us and claps again, it seems it’s up to us to maintain or break the status quo.

Looking For: To be programmed at festival