Anima Animae Animam
2021 · 30m · España
Directed by José (Putxa) Puchades Martínez, Julieta Gasroc
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, mythic, tender
This tribute honours the puppeteers who gave their voices and souls to objects with so much to say, storytellers who, deemed soulless for their profession, were once not allowed to be buried in cemeteries.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 30-minute love letter to puppeteers feels like the safest possible tribute film until you realize it's actually arguing that we've been burying the wrong people—literally—and that's genuinely heretical in the best way.
The essay film's formal lineage runs from Marker through Farocki, and this one earns its place by treating puppetry as a philosophical problem: how does craft confer soul, and who gets to decide whose labor counts as human?
The decision to let the puppeteers' hands do almost all the talking—no talking heads, just their fingers moving objects through space—transforms what could've been archival piety into something tactile and alive.