The first-ever animated film to come out of Romania — Out next month digitally in North America!
“A hidden animated gem from Romania”
Morbidly Beautiful
“A wonderfully eccentric, fun, strange, and altogether fantastic piece of science fiction”
The Movie Isle
DELTA SPACE MISSION (1984, 70 min.) from directors Mircea Toia and Călin Cazan. Best described as an early 80s Eastern European space-prog album high on sugary breakfast cereal, Heavy Metal magazine, Hanna-Barbera cartoons and 8-bit arcade games like Galaxian and Asteroids, all of these elements will give you some idea of the otherworldly weirdness of the Romanian animated sci-fi film DELTA SPACE MISSION. In the year 3084, Alma, a Modigliani-esque alien journalist with blue-green skin, boards a state-of-the-art spacecraft named Delta whose highly advanced computer brain develops a mad teenage crush on her with disastrous results.
An incredibly strange and strangely beautiful work of galactic eye candy, DELTA SPACE MISSION defies all rules of perspective and logic, like M.C. Escher and Moebius teaming up on a Romanian Saturday morning cartoon. Fueled by an addictive Perry-Kingsley like electronic synth score by Calin Ioachimescu, DELTA SPACE MISSION grooves along folding space and time, an early 80s Eurodisco perched on the edge of a Black Hole. With its egg-shaped spaceships, giant floating triangles, and anthropomorphic computer, the film also brings to mind Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, Rene Laloux’s FANTASTIC PLANET, and the work of the Strugatsky Brothers (STALKER). (In Romanian with English subtitles).
“Our story started from the idea of a Romanian poem from the late 1800s by Mihai Eminescu, ‘Luceafărul,’ which talks about the impossible love between Luceafăr (Evening Star) and an emperor’s daughter, “ said co-director Călin Cazan of the film. “Then we slipped in the story of the relationship between the computer and the alien journalist Alma, linking the action to what we had seen in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.”
A collector’s edition BluRay of DELTA SPACE MISSION is currently available through Vinegar Syndrome and OCN Distribution, and can be found HERE.
DELTA SPACE MISSION
Original Title: Misiunea spatialã Delta
Genre: Animation/Sci-Fi
Country: Romania
Runtime: 70 mins
Year: 1984
Language: Romanian with English subtitles
Rated: Not Rated
