Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 17, 2010. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Babioles (French for “trinkets”) by French artist Matray, aka Mathieu Auvray, came to life thanks to DSLR video. Animated characters walk through the streets of an unnamed big city.
The Rabbit and the Indian
The Babioles find themselves on a rubbish dump, searching for a little human closeness and attention. In the first episode, the little rabbit and his new friend, the little Indian, set off for the big city. What sounds cute and childlike is, however, a thoroughly French short film. The rabbit’s first encounter with a human ends with a sharp introduction to a syringe needle. The second contact, at the foot of an escalator, ends in a pile of excrement on the street. For those who cannot get enough of the animals, the blog is recommended: at babioles-blog.blogspot.com, the charming protagonists show where their adventures take them, while matrayz.blogspot.com introduces the artist and further projects. Yet the film project, described by the artist himself as “Little toys from our childhood, lost in an adult, violent and absurd world,” is difficult to surpass. A planned TV-series adaptation has been promoted with trailers since 25 August and was due to enter regular programming later in 2010, after the film-festival season.
More about Babioles and the other animago winners and nominees can be found in the special issue.
