Chez moi
2014 · 12m · France
Directed by Phuong Mai Nguyen
Genres: animation, coming-of-age, fantasy
Tones: surreal, tender, whimsical
Six-year-old Hugo, plagued by loneliness, one day finds a blue feather at home. He then meets his mother's new companion for the first time — a strange stranger with the appearance of a crow — and must find his place in this blended family, even if it costs him a few feathers.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A kid-befriends-crow-mom's-boyfriend premise that could've been saccharine treacle, but Nguyen commits to the surreal logic hard enough that it actually unsettles you—the feather-shedding cost of belonging is genuinely weird, not cute-weird.
Formally situated in a lineage of poetic animation that traces back through Eastern European tradition, with a restraint in color and movement that refuses sentimentality even as it handles the most delicate subject matter.
The decision to literalize emotional vulnerability as actual feather-loss—making the invisible cost of family integration tangible and painful—transforms a twelve-minute animation from gentle fable into something with real teeth, all on what must have been a modest budget.
Reviews
« Chez moi » de Phuong Mai Nguyen est un fabuleux conte animé aux couleurs magnifiques, sans paroles, tout en émotions. « Chez moi » est un film très personnel sur la différence, le sentiment d'insécurité et la famille recomposée, nourri par un univers très étrange, proche du fantastique, à l'univers sonore et visuel très maîtrisé.