One Balloon is a short 35 mm film that combines live action with traditional stop-motion animation. One Balloon will be the first film to introduce the narrative principals of LUCID REALISM, a narrative strategy developed by the filmmakers, Aruna Naimji and Aram Hekinian. One Balloon is the a journey into a woman's subconscious to explore themes of identity, duality, sexuality and biological change.

The story of "One Balloon" begins with a girl, who has been imprisoned for years at the "Institute of Knowledge" where people stare at information cards until the information on them disappears. Although given an opportunity to leave the institute, the girl chooses to stay. It is there that she grows into a woman.

Her self-imposed imprisonment comes to an end when her biological clock instigates a physical split in her personality, forcing the woman to confront two aspects of herself: Intellect and Sexuality. One incarnation of the woman wants to fulfill the woman's biological need to reproduce, while the other incarnation of the woman wants to continue at the institute.

In the struggle, one woman is placed in a box, which then shrinks and is eaten by the victorious woman. The little box then falls into its correct place in the biological clock, thus the capture of this incarnation of the woman fulfills a critical requirement of the clock's function. The clock is half filled with incarnations of the woman.

The biological clock is a hybrid creation of organic and mechanical parts, containing many complex gauges and compartments. The model of the clock is a collage of found and fabricated parts, and animated using traditional stop motion techniques. All of the effects will be done in camera. The clock's compartments contain various objects needed for the proper growth of a young woman. Also contained in the clock are the various sides of the woman's personality: a precocious girl, rebellious youth, sexual temptress, mother, intellectual etc. Throughout the film, the biological clock is referred back to as a gauge of progress and change within the woman. Petals dropping from the flowers suggest the passage of time and serve as a continual reminder that time for this woman to have a baby is running out.

After the personality split, the new incarnation of the woman embarks on the ritual of dating, where couples meet each other to exchange suitcases filled with personal symbolic objects. Couples look through the suitcases hoping to find objects that match. When a match is made, the couple signs a contract and consumes a pair of rings like breath-mints.

The separation of the woman's intellect from her sexuality is further explored in a surreal scene in which the woman's head is mounted on a wall opposite her headless body. Both are mounted like trophies and kept unknown to the other- the head covered with a vale, and the body kept behind a velvet curtain. The woman's newly found mate serves as the link between the two entities.

Even in this state of disconnection, the woman's sexual drive to reproduce is imposed on the man. During a moment of intimacy, the headless woman castrates the man by cutting his hair. The man's hair is symbolic of youth, fertility and identity. A pair of scissors with the legs of a woman hypnotizes the unsuspecting man with her dangerous sexuality.

During this trance, mechanical scissors come out of the wall and cut the man's hair. The scissors-woman activates the wall-scissors by stepping on control buttons in the floor. When the haircut is complete, the man awakes to find his long hair gone. The man picks up several locks of his shorn hair and exits through a red door, which opens onto a lush, fertile park.

The man plants seven locks of his hair in a circle in the grass. Balloons grow from the ground and sway playfully in the air. The man jumps happily among the balloons, until, one of the balloons is cut by a hand in the bushes and flies away. The remaining balloons deflate and all that is left of the cut balloon is a cord. The man strains to pull the cord out of the ground but the cord is attached to a large buried rock.

This rock cries like a baby when extracted from the ground. Another incarnation of the woman is seen nursing the rock, which becomes a real baby. He places a lock of his hair in her tiny hands and walks away towards another woman standing on the horizon.

The final scene shows all the woman's incarnations standing motionless in a line, portraying a moment when time stands still.

One Balloon draws from such stylistic references as Jan Svankmajer, The Brothers Quay, Frida Kahlo, Garcia Marques and Fritz Lang.

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