Madeleine (2023)

Directed by

Raquel Sancinetti

Genre

animation, documentary

Country

Canada

Runtime

15 min

Rating

7.7 of 10 from 3 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A filmmaker takes her elderly friend on a road trip through the medium of animation. The short film mixes documentary and fantasy elements to show their real-life friendship. It uses puppet animation and live-action to tell this personal story.

intimategentlemelancholicnostalgicwhimsicalbittersweettenderlife-affirming

What happens

Madeleine is a 2023 Canadian short animated film, directed by Raquel Sancinetti. Based on Sancinetti's own real-life friendship with Madeleine, a centenarian woman, the film blends documentary and fictional elements, and both live-action and puppet animation, to depict a story about her taking Madeleine on a road trip. According to Sancinetti, Madeleine was a woman she first met in 2017 through a friend who taught fitness classes at the retirement home where Madeleine lived, whom she built a friendship with and began to visit regularly; however, being of advanced age, Madeleine was reluctant to leave the home as she needed to conserve her limited energy for regular daily life activities, so Sancinetti decided to take her friend on one last life adventure through animation. The film premiered at the 2023 Saguenay International Short Film Festival. It was later added to Op-Docs, the film streaming platform of The New York Times. The film was named to the Toronto International Film Festival's annual Canada's Top Ten list for 2023. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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