Apples and Oranges
2003 · 17m · Canada
Directed by Lynne Fernie
Genres: animation, documentary, family
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
Classroom discussion and animated tales address homophobia and gender bullying for children aged eight to twelve. Creativity and friendship offer alternatives to revenge and exclusion.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Yeah, it's agitprop for kids—which should be unwatchable—but Fernie commits to the weird hybrid form so earnestly that it sidesteps the after-school-special trap; the animation actually *thinks* alongside the talking heads instead of just illustrating them.
A formally considered film that knows exactly what it's inheriting—the pedagogical documentary tradition, the Canadian NFB lineage of socially purposeful shorts—and executes it with such deliberate craft that the animated sequences feel like they're in dialogue with Grimm rather than just softening a message.
The decision to let animation and real classroom footage breathe in separate registers, rather than collapse them, is what keeps this from feeling didactic; the whimsy gets its weight precisely because it never oversells the emotional stakes of what these kids are actually saying.