It took Adam Elliot fifteen years to follow up the brilliant Mary & Max. He did well to take his time, Memoirs of a snailGrand Prize at the 2024 Annecy Festival, allowed the Australian director to make his film completely independently. “Not everyone has the means to Coraline and of Wallace et GromitI have to do the best I can with very little money. »
It was not easy to find financing for this stop motion film (puppet animation) about a depressed and lonely young girl, obsessed with gastropods. It was therefore necessary to move forward step by step to achieve this wonderful result.
In a very small team
“I set up the project by saving penny by penny to buy supplies and rent a studio,” explains the filmmaker. Relatives came to help me. It’s my cousin who animates the heroine because I wanted it to be a woman who makes her move.” In this film full of fantasy, everything was created by hand with remarkable attention to detail. “That’s the main advantage of working the way I do, I can take my time and decide everything,” explains Adam Elliot. The main disadvantage is that we are often agitated by the fear of not succeeding. »
It took him eight years to bring to life this girl who dreams of being a presenter (“That’s where we see that she’s a little crazy,” he says), and her twin brother from whom she is brutally separated. , to her eccentric neighbor and her perverted boyfriend. “I don’t regret having spent so much time with them but I don’t know if I will have the courage to embark on a project of this magnitude again,” he admits.
All that remains is to hope that his distinction in Annecy will have given him the confidence to embark on a new project. Because we would like Adam Elliot’s voice, powerful and unique, to be heard more often.
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