Based on the film Nominated for BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
89^th ACADEMY AWARDS®

Based on the short story “Blind Vaysha” by Georgi Gospodinov
© Georgi Gospodinov, 2001

Vaysha is not like other little girls: she was born with a left eye that sees only the past and a right eye that sees only the future, and she cannot live in the present. Should she poke out one of her eyes so that she can live in the other’s temporal reality? Or is she doomed to perceive the world from this perplexing perspective?

 Blind Vaysha is an expressionistic work that’s been created in three distinct versions: 2D, stereoscopic 3D and virtual reality (VR). Director Theodore Ushev embraced VR for one simple reason: to allow viewers to have a more visceral connection with his heroine. He uses this immersive technology to serve the purposes of narrative, not visual spectacle, and to make the central metaphor of his story, which is steeped in Buddhist wisdom, that much more compelling.

Each of these versions uses the same animation method: the traditional art of linocutting recreated on a graphics tablet, a popular tool for today’s animators. The result is a fascinating encounter between artistic tradition and cutting-edge technology—an apt way of perpetuating an exquisite, centuries-old form of visual art.                  

Vaysha is not like other young girls: she was born with one green eye and one brown eye. But her unmatched eyes aren’t all that’s special about her gaze: her left eye sees only the past, and her right eye only the future. Like a terrible curse, Vaysha’s split vision prevents her from living in the present. Blinded by what was and tormented by what will be, she remains trapped between two irreconcilable temporalities. “Blind Vaysha”—that’s what everyone calls her.

Directed by renowned filmmaker and animator Theodore Ushev, Blind Vaysha is adapted from a philosophical short story by Georgi Gospodinov, a leading multidisciplinary author from the younger generation of Bulgarian writers. Using an expressive, powerful style poised midway between religious paintings and linocuts, Ushev reaffirms his virtuosity in visual experimentation, creating a film that is both symbolic and accessible, featuring bucolic European landscapes and Benedictine architecture.

Brilliantly narrated by actress Caroline Dhavernas, Blind Vaysha uses wisdom and humour to tell its metaphorical tale about the difficulty of living in the here and now. Available in 2D and stereoscopic 3D, Blind Vaysha will soon be released in a VR version that allows viewers to forge an immediate and visceral connection with its protagonist.

Blind Vaysha takes an unusual approach to virtual reality (VR). Normally, VR requires the use either of several cameras or of one 360-degree camera to reconstruct an immersive environment. In Blind Vaysha, filmmaker Theodore Ushev instead opted for the two cameras of traditional stereoscopy, adapting them adroitly to his purposes.

In order to create a stereoscopic image of a scene, it must be shot twice, from two slightly different positions separated by a distance equivalent to the distance between the eyes. When the two images are then projected onto a screen, the viewer must wear special glasses equipped with polarizing filters that fuse the two images into one and create the illusion of depth.

That is the traditional process that Ushev used for the stereoscopic 3D version of Blind Vaysha. But in the VR version, the VR-headset wearer momentarily experiences a visual disorder, because the two recorded images do not always merge into a single, unified whole. In fact, each eye sees a different image. Ushev does this to fully immerse his audience in Vaysha’s experience in the sequences shot from her subjective viewpoint, in which one eye sees only the past and the other only the future. This confusing perspective enables audiences not only to identify strongly with the protagonist but also to have a physical and visceral experience, disrupting their passive, comfortable view of the world.