Skwigly.com presents Animation One-To-Ones featuring Ben Mitchell in conversation with Marie Valade, a Quebec-based animation filmmaker whose latest film Lolos (Boobs), premiered earlier this year at the prestigious Annecy International Animation Festival.

Both equally poignant and witty, the film sees a young woman drawn in ink who is forced to deal with paper breasts appearing on her chest. She must quickly come to terms with these new strange things. Her breasts lead her into increasingly unusual situations that reveal her deepest anxieties: the fear of becoming a woman, the apprehension of female rivalries, the taming of male desire, the worries related to becoming a mother and finally the fear of cancer and a loss of bearings. Boobs is both a comic and dark journey that explores a woman’s love-hate relationship for her body and her femininity. It highlights the powerful symbolism that breasts evoke for everyone. Boobs is presently screening as part of the Toronto International Film Festival and Bristol’s Encounters Festival.

In 2010 Marie obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Film Animation at Concordia University and participated in the NFB’s Hothouse apprenticeship program. Since then, she has collaborated on short and feature films and cultural mediation projects. Fascinated by traditional frame by frame animation techniques including pixilation, object and puppet animation and 2D animation, she likes to play with the boundaries between narrative storytelling and experimental creation. See more of Marie’s work at cargocollective.com/mariev

As well as continuing to work in animation Marie is co-director of Festival Stop Motion Montreal, whose 15th edition takes place September 10th-19th 2021. For more information visit stopmotionmontreal.com/

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Guest: Marie Valade
Presented, edited and produced by: Ben Mitchell
Music and graphics: Ben Mitchell