Saturday, 21 November 2026 at 9 pm
La science des rêves
Directed by: Michel Gondry
France, 2006, colour, 105'
After his father died of cancer, Stéphane – of Mexican descent on his father's side and French on his mother's – agrees to his mother's suggestion to move back to France from Mexico. Although he is not particularly fluent in French, his mother arranges for him to stay in his old room in a building she owns (while she herself lives with her current boyfriend, Gérard, a magician), and also finds him a job in a calendar shop, where he could use his graphic design skills. The job, however, turns out to be different from what his mother described – it is in fact a monotonous, dead-end job – but Stéphane nevertheless manages to form a sort of friendship with his new colleagues.
Among them, Guy stands out in particular, the longest-serving employee; he is an immature bully obsessed with sex, who over time becomes Stéphane's trusted confidant. At the same time, Stéphane befriends his neighbour Stéphanie and her friend Zoé. Their relationship is based on certain untruths: the two artistic women keep quiet about the fact that, just like him, they work in monotonous, dead-end jobs, while Stéphane keeps quiet about the fact that he is actually Stéphanie's neighbour and the son of her landlady – which allows him to observe her flat unnoticed.
Although Stéphane is romantically interested in Zoé, he believes that Stéphanie, on the other hand, is interested in him. In any case, Stéphane is developing a special bond with Stéphanie; their similar names are just one of many signs suggesting that the cosmos has predestined this connection. Regardless of what Stéphanie may feel for him, their friendship – or rather, relationship – will be affected by Stéphane's frequent inability to distinguish reality from his extremely vivid dreams…
Following the immense success of his previous film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which was produced in America and earned him an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (along with Charlie Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth), Michel Gondry, best known for directing music videos for numerous popular artists before Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, made his feature film debut in his native France with The Science of Sleep. It is a surreal, humorous fantasy, an oniric film in which reality and dreams intertwine, often in an elusive way. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the most important independent film festival, then had a US cinema release and was also screened at the world's most prestigious film festival, Cannes. Critics received The Science of Sleep mostly positively, and the gist of their impressions and interpretations was that the film is charming and scattered, but not as immediately appealing as Gondry's previous work, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, yet its chaotic beauty is a reward in itself. It should also be mentioned that The Science of Sleep is the winner of the European Film Award for Best Artistic Contribution, which it received for its production design.
Comment by: Damir Radić
Tickets for the screening on 21 November 2026 at 9 pm can be purchased online HERE, as well as at the Surogatkino KIC box office before the start.