Polish film producer Art Borowiec’s sci-fi, dark fantasy animated short Zombie Ship is set for world premiere on YouTube on 1 July 2025. The 3D short film is a haunting exploration of the survival paradox – are there any true limits to the fight for life?
The English-language film’s synopsis reads: A lone fisherman faces the relentless pull of a monstrous, storm-tossed sea-drawn back toward a ravenous beast lurking in its depths. Desperate to live, he will sacrifice anything, even his own humanity, in a fatal struggle for survival. Yet there’s no escape from the cycle of darkness already set in motion. This is a tale of eternal predation, not salvation. In the horror of Zombie Ship, chiaroscuro reveals only what can be torn from the abyss, while the unknown thrives, undisturbed, in the suffocating shadows. The film plunges into the harrowing moral dilemma: how far will one go to save their life, when survival demands the ultimate price?
The film is written and directed by Borowiec, who has worked on VFX for several films including Tout un hiver sans feu (2004), Snow White and Russian Red (2009), and Diablo (2019). It is produced by his studio Deep Flame.
“Visually, the film draws from the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio to mirror the Fisherman’s moral decay,” the director stated. “Harsh light cuts through greasy shadows, revealing only fragments – as though the darkness itself is consuming humanity. The ship, a Frankensteinian collage of rusted hulls and shattered masts, moves with a grotesque biomechanical rhythm. The helpless crew mindlessly constructs the machinery of their own annihilation.”
He continued, “This is horror as cultural autopsy. The ocean is not just the setting, but a character: an ancient, hungry witness to humanity’s worst impulse – devouring the weak in the name of self-preservation. When survival demands becoming another link in the chain of predation, what is the acceptable price of life? There is no redemption here, only the terrifying beauty of inevitability – the unbroken cycle of survival. Zombie Ship isn’t about monsters. It’s about the monster in each of us.”
With two decades of experience in CGI and animation, Borowiec specialises in non-traditional advertising solutions, commercials, graphic design for TV stations, and other custom TV projects. His portfolio includes hundreds of advertising productions for major companies such as Discovery, Viacom, Disney and more.
