Big Mouth

Flawed is nothing less than a beautiful gift from Andrea Dorfman's vivid imagination, a charming little film about very big ideas. Dorfman has the uncanny ability to transform the intensely personal into the wisely universal. In Flawed she deftly traces her encounter with a potential romantic partner, questioning her attraction and the uneasy possibility of love. But, ultimately, Flawed is less about whether girl can get along with boy than whether girl can accept herself, imperfections and all. In many ways, Flawed is both an exquisite tribute to the art of animation and a loving homage to storyboarding, a time-honoured way of rendering scenes while pointing the way to the dramatic arc of the tale. Here Dorfman lets her colourful storyboards shape up into the very content of the film. The resulting effect is pure and fresh, as if we were watching the birth not only of love but of the film itself.

Ce ne sont pas les mots qui manquent à la cinéaste Andrea Dorfman. Dans Bouche décousue, elle relate l'histoire d'une enfant à l'esprit vif qui s'interroge sur ce que signifie « dire la vérité » et en arrive à comprendre en quoi nos différences nous rendent uniques. Ce récit fantaisiste empreint de sensibilité met en scène des marionnettes dessinées à la main qui dansent, sautent à la corde et traversent l'écran en voiturette. Pendant ce temps, une petite fille apprend la complexité des mots et constate que nos paroles ne correspondent pas toujours à ce que nous voulons dire. À la fois franche et impolie, Aimée observe le monde d'une très curieuse façon et avec la plus grande transparence. Elle annonce ce qu'elle voit en toute honnêteté, qu'il s'agisse d'un gros grain de beauté... ou d'un gros ventre! Résultat : une impressionnante accumulation de notes disciplinaires de son enseignante. Comme Aimée, chacun de nous arrive un jour à apprendre à lire, à se faire des amis et à développer une saine relation avec la vérité. Destiné à tous ceux, jeunes ou vieux, à qui il est arrivé de s'attirer des ennuis pour avoir trop parlé, Bouche décousue est un court métrage d'animation portant sur l'une des grandes leçons de vie.

Is there a more mysterious landscape than girlhood? This smart documentary dares to explore that increasingly intimidating terrain, following three 12 year-olds on their bumpy journeys into their futures. Over the course of a year, filmmaker Victoria King is a welcome but discreet presence in the lives of Avi, Jazmine, and Jane. As we see, the girls are as different from each other as sugar and spice, but all are living through that uncertain slide from childhood to maturity. Peer pressure is an important influence on the formation of identity but, as the film shows, the greatest influence in a young girl's life is family. Today, family often means that dad is remote or completely absent. That leaves mom in control, almost single-handedly shaping the character and determining the future of her young charge. What comes of such responsibility? Avi spends a lot of time in her room studying, or trying to. She is expected to achieve nothing less than academic perfection - an admirable but impossible goal. In some ways Avi is more comfortable with the camera and her anonymous audience than with a mother who wants to know everything. The nature of Jazmine's pressure is more subtle. Mom is devoted to her happiness, but must struggle with the needs of her other children, trying to make ends meet, and the hardships that come from doing it all alone. Jane's 12-year-old life is equally involved. Mom is an artist who seeks to balance her bohemian ethics with more structured rules - not always an obvious path to follow. Like the other girls, Jane has to find her own way among many different signposts. The filmmaker, herself a mother of a young daughter, treats her subjects with sensitivity and respect. Her creative approach, including "diary-cam" footage, not only follows the girls, but allows them to question their worlds in their own voices. Ultimately, the film reveals the complexity of being 12,both satisfying our curiosity and inviting us to ask: What happens next?