Rob Munday

Following a hugely successful festival tour, which saw it win the ‘Short Film Jury Award: Animation’ at Sundance and the BAFTA for best ‘British Short Animation’, Nina Gantz’s National Film and Television School short Edmond has been released online for internet viewers to see what festival-goers worldwide have been raving about. A story told in reverse chronological order, as we witness how the titular Edmond first began to have cannibalistic urges, Gantz’s film manages to be darkly funny and surprisingly tender in its restrained 9-minute run-time.

With the premise for Edmond originating at a production design workshop at the NFTS, where director Gantz designed a set consisting of a house with four rooms in which a character would regress into the past each time they stepped into a new space, the story has come a long way since its early inception. Revolving around a main character with cannibalistic instincts, it would have been easy for Edmond to slip into the realms of the grotesque or unsettling, but it’s to Gantz’s credit this never happens. Instead what we’re presented with is actually a heartfelt watch, where you truly care and feel for the film’s titular character – even when presented with what should be a disturbing finale (when we discover the origins of Edmond’s urges) there’s a fuzzy warmth to it.

The softening of the story can largely be accredited to the textural stop-motion style that Gantz decided to employ in telling her tale. Aesthetically similar to fellow festival favourite Oh Willy…, where wooly visuals also diffused the surrealism of the story, there’s no denying Gantz’s approach feels like an incredibly accessible way of delivering a story about a man with a hunger for human flesh.

Recently named as one of Variety Magazine’s 10 animators to watch in 2016, Gantz is certainly a filmmaking we’ll be keeping a close eye on in the future.