Grace Pudel is a lonely outsider with a passion for collecting decorative snails and a deep love for books. At a young age, after being separated from her twin brother Gilbert, Grace spirals into anxiety and fear. Hope and inspiration come when she forms a lasting friendship with Pinky, an eccentric older woman full of courage and zest for life.

The film premiered at the Annecy Festival, where it won the award for best feature film.

Film expert recommends

The second feature-length animated film by a new master of this kind of cinema, known from our cinemas for Mary and Max (2009) and the Oscar-winning animated short, the 23-minute Harvie Krumpet (2003). The artist’s work has some constant themes and ways of approaching them. The former include loneliness, attempts to communicate, establishing relationships in difficult circumstances and the passage of time in people’s lives. He captures these in the form of comedy-dramas, sprinkling them with black humour and a fair amount of melancholy. It feels like a very personal cinema, based on a variety of life experiences, always bittersweet, where you almost know from birth that the end will come one day. Elliot is such a household name in his home country that some of Australia’s best actors are appearing with him. You can look out (or rather: listen in) for Eric Bana or Nick Cave, among others, and above all admire the masterpiece of stop-motion animation Anno Domini 2024.

Jacek Nowakowski