An Artist
1994 · 5m · Canada
Directed by Michèle Cournoyer
Genres: animation, coming-of-age, family
A girl transforms household dishes into musical instruments instead of washing them. Her father eventually recognises creative talent demanding development.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A girl plays drums on dinner plates instead of washing them—premise is cute, sure, but Cournoyer doesn't lean into the anarchic potential; it's too earnest, too willing to let the father's eventual blessing feel like the real story instead of the punchline.
Cournoyer's animation situa itself squarely in the NFB's tradition of gentle moral fables, and the restraint in the visual language—allowing the mundane kitchen to become an instrument of discovery—demonstrates disciplined craft in service of a bildungsroman lineage.
The decision to make the percussion *visual* rather than foregrounding a pre-recorded score is what elevates this: watching household objects become resonant through animation itself, rather than telling us they're musical, is the economy of choice that transforms a greeting-card premise into something that actually lands.