Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (2025): The Brothers Quay Return with a Dreamlike Fantasy

After nearly two decades away from feature filmmaking, the Brothers Quay have returned with something haunting, poetic, and utterly surreal. Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, their 2024 live-action/animated hybrid fantasy drama, made its debut at the 81st Venice International Film Festival and is now preparing for its U.S. theatrical release at New York’s Film Forum on August 29, 2025.

Adapted from Bruno Schulz’s 1937 novel, the film immerses viewers in a shifting dreamscape where memory, time, and identity fracture into dazzling fragments.

⏳ The Story – A Journey Beyond Time

The film follows Jozef, who boards a ghostly train to visit his dying father at a remote Galician sanatorium. Yet, upon arrival, he discovers this sanatorium exists outside of ordinary reality. Here, time lags behind the outside world, creating a paradox where his father’s death has not yet taken place.

As Jozef navigates this strange place, he encounters multiple manifestations of his father, each embodying different facets of their complicated relationship. The narrative becomes an intricate puzzle of memory and dream, blurring the line between waking life and the subconscious.

One line from Schulz’s source material captures the spirit of the film:“Time here is not in a hurry; it delays, lingers, and is never quite finished.”

🎭 The Cast – Faces in a Dream

The film’s cast enhances its surreal and theatrical atmosphere:

• Tadeusz Janiszewski as the enigmatic Auctioneer

• Wioletta Kopańska as Adele II

• Andrzej Kłak as the Chimney Swiper

• Allison Bell and Zenaida Yanowsky, adding depth to the ensemble

Each performance unfolds like a living fragment of a dream, part of a surreal tapestry rather than a traditional character arc.

🎨 A Quay Brothers Vision

Directed and written by Stephen and Timothy Quay, the film is a masterwork of atmosphere, combining live-action performances with the duo’s signature stop-motion-inspired surrealism.

The production draws from a rich collaboration:

• Cinematography by Bartosz Bieniek bathes the film in shadowy, painterly hues.

• Editing by the Quays themselves ensures a rhythmic, disorienting flow.

• Music by Timothy Nelson adds to the hallucinatory mood, echoing the distorted passage of time.

The film was brought to life by BFI, Telewizja Polska S.A., Koninck Studios, SpK Galicia Limited, and The Match Factory, and distributed by KimStim, known for championing daring independent cinema.

📅 Release Journey

• Venice Premiere: August 29, 2024 (Giornate degli Autori)

• Poland Release: April 11, 2025

• U.S. Release (Film Forum, NYC): August 29, 2025

At just 76 minutes, the film is brief but dense, a surrealist chamber piece that demands to be experienced rather than explained.

🌌 Why It Matters

Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass is more than a film — it’s an immersive meditation on time, memory, and mortality. It marks a triumphant return for the Brothers Quay, whose influence on experimental cinema and animation spans decades. For cinephiles, it is both a rare adaptation of Schulz’s haunting literature and a long-awaited expansion of the Quays’ cinematic universe.

This is not a film of clear answers but of lingering impressions — a visual poem where reality bends, memory lives, and time refuses to die.

📺 Final Details

• Title: Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass

• Directors/Writers: Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay

• Based on: Bruno Schulz’s 1937 novel

• Starring: Tadeusz Janiszewski, Wioletta Kopańska, Andrzej Kłak, Allison Bell, Zenaida Yanowsky

  
  

• Release:

  
  

  • August 29, 2024 (Venice Premiere)

  • April 11, 2025 (Poland)

  • August 29, 2025 (New York City, Film Forum)

• Languages: Polish

• Runtime: 76 minutes

✨ For fans of surreal cinema, literary adaptations, and avant-garde filmmaking, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass is shaping up to be one of the most important art-house releases of 2025.