The short film below, which premieres this week at Sundance, was directed by Goran Dukic and is based on Israeli writer Etgar Keret‘s short story “What Do We Have in Our Pockets”. The tw0-page story is included in Keret’s terrific 2012 collection Suddenly, A Knock On The Door.

If you haven’t read any of Keret’s mind-bending short fiction, start with his early collections The Nimrod Flipout or The Girl on the Fridge. But for now, you can read “What Do We Have in Our Pockets ?” at failbetter.com .

According to Keret:

“In this project, Dov Alfon and I are trying to do something that’s supposed to be the literary version of the music video. Basically we’re trying to get filmmakers to express reading. We believe that it’s a new kind of storytelling that can bring people who are not natural readers closer to literature, and advance the idea that stories are there, waiting to be read, and don’t necessarily have to be threatening.

People relate to literature like it is castor oil for bones, like music and cinema are fun, and literature strengthens your bones. We’re trying to say that it isn’t so,” said Keret.

“Goran Dukic worked my book ‘Kneller’s Happy Campers,’ into a feature with Tom Waits. We approached him about it, and he made a video called ‘What do we have in our pockets,’ and in the meantime, we’re very happy that it has received almost 150,000 views in just a few days, and we are getting lots of tweets expressing support from literary magazines. The movie will also compete at Sundance,” continued Keret.

Related articles

• Etgar Keret’s pastrami sandwich (timesofisrael.com)
• Sundance 2013 Unveils Short Film Lineup (deadline.com)
• Sixty-Five Make Sundance Film Festival Cut For Shorts (movieline.com)
• Watch Sundance’s completely insane collection of short films right now (io9.com)