Conte de quartier
2006 · 15m · Canada
Directed by Florence Miailhe
Genres: animation, experimental, fantasy
Tones: darkly comic, surreal, whimsical
Seven characters and a rag doll are swept through a dizzying chain of events in a neighbourhood under reconstruction, rendered in paint, sand, and digital animation without words.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Most animators would've picked a lane—go full experimental OR full narrative—but Miailhe does something weirder: she builds a perfectly legible story out of *sand and paint*, which somehow makes the surrealism feel earned instead of affected.
Conte de quartier sits precisely in the lineage of European avant-garde animation—Švankmajer's tactility, Foldes' formal innovation—yet Miailhe's decision to render neighbourhood destruction through mixed media rather than allegory gives the film a material rigor that feels urgent and contemporary.
The soundless narration could've been gimmicky, but the choice to let the *texture of the animation itself* carry meaning—sand shifting, paint bleeding—does more work than dialogue ever could on a 15-minute budget.