Hedgehogs and the City
2013 · 11m · Latvia
Directed by Evalds Lacis
Genres: animation, comedy, fantasy
Tones: absurdist, humorous, whimsical
Forest animals wake from hibernation to find their home turned into a city, and set about solving the townspeople's everyday problems — for a price.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Cute premise, sure, but once you clock that it's just 'what if animals were business consultants,' the subversion evaporates — it's actually pretty conventional beneath the whimsy, and I'm not interested in films that mistake gentle absurdism for actual weirdness.
Lacis demonstrates genuine command of anthropomorphic animation tradition — the film sits comfortably in a lineage from classic fables through contemporary European animation — with precise comic timing and a clean visual language that respects both form and audience.
The genius move here is the economic constraint of the premise itself: by forcing the hedgehogs to solve human problems *transactionally*, the whole film becomes about the edit between chaos and resolution, and Lacis's decision to play it deadpan rather than slapstick is what makes the small-scale absurdity actually land.
Festivals
- Berlin International Film Festival, Winner of two awards
- Zlín International Film Festival for Children and Youth
- Latvian National Film Festival
- Animafest Zagreb