The last time we heard anything about The Congress, Ari Folman‘s follow-up to his remarkable 2008 film, Waltz with Bashir, was back in 2011.  The movie is a blend of live action and animation that adapts Stanislaw Lem’s classic short story, “The Futurological Congress”, and follows an aging actress desperate for work (Robin Wright) who takes one last job to support her disabled son (Kodi-Smit McPhee).  We hoped to see the film in 2012, but now it will finally debut at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.  The trailer has debuted online, and the movie looks beautiful and enchantingly strange.  Wright plays herself, and then is scanned into an animated world where the studio now owns her, but she will be forever young.  Even though there’s a bit of sci-fi in here, it’s not too far removed from reality where motion-capture has become a regular part of filmmaking.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Danny Huston, Harvey Keitel, and Paul Giamatti.  The 2013 Cannes Film Festival runs from May 15 – 26th.

LAIKA’s awesome 3D stop-motion feature, ParaNorman opens this Friday.  Directed by Chris Butler and Sam Fell, the film centers on a young boy who can see the dead and must use this gift to lift a curse that threatens his small town.  ParaNorman features the voices of Kodi-Smit McPhee, Anna Kendrick, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, John Goodman, Casey Affleck, Leslie Mann, Jodelle Ferland and more.  For more on the film, here’s six clips, a very cool featurette called Time Lapse, and all our previous coverage.

At the recent Los Angeles press day I spoke to Kodi-Smit McPhee.  We talked about making ParaNorman, his reaction to the finished film, how the script change along the way, what surprised him about the recording process, and upcoming projects like The Congress, Romeo and Juliet and A Birder’s Guide to Everything.  Hit the jump to watch.

It’s been almost a year since we last updated Ari Folman’s (Waltz with Bashir) current project, The Congress, an ambitious blend of live action and animation that adapts Stanislaw Lem’s classic short story, “The Futurological Congress.” Unfortunately, it looks like it’s going to be another year before we see the finished product in all its glory. The plot follows an aging actress desperate for work (Robin Wright) who takes one last job to support her disabled son (assumed to be Kodi-Smit McPhee). Unfortunately for her, the studio captures her likeness through a scan and can use the images however they choose to, which essentially makes her expendable and blacklisted from future jobs. Her decision, however, has far-reaching repercussions beyond her own life. Hit the jump for a sampling of the animation in The Congress as well as an update from Folman himself.

Actor Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In) has recently chosen his next project, a futuristic sci-fi film titled, The Congress. Adapted from Stanislaw Lem’s short story The Futurological Congress, the film will be directed by Ari Folman, whose last film was the Oscar-nominated Waltz with Bashir. Smit-McPhee joins a cast in the animated film that includes Robin Wright, Danny Huston, Harvey Keitel and Paul Giamatti. Smit-McPhee revealed his involvement in an interview with We Got This Covered (via The Playlist):

“I’m also doing a film called The Congress which is just in the rehearsal process and I think next week we’ll be shooting. I don’t really know how to explain it, I think it’s sci-fi and futuristic.”

We previously brought you the first image from the film last year. For more on The Congress, hit the jump.

Ari Folman, director of the acclaimed animated foreign film Waltz With Bashir, has been hard at work on his fourth feature length film, The Congress, and we finally have a fruit of his labor. /Film grabbed the image, depicting an animated and aged Robin Wright. The film is loosely adapted from the Stanislaw Lem short story, The Futurological Congress.

The short story stars Lem’s frequent male character, Ijon Tichy, who ends up in a world where the Utopian society isn’t quite what it seems as psychoactive dugs are used as weapons and hallucinogenic drugs replace the cold reality. Notice the gender of the character in the film and the story differ. That is because Folman is adding his own take on things and has made the main character female.

For the full image, more plot details, and when the film will screen, hit the jump.