My strange grandfather - Mi abuelo es raro
2011 · 9m · Rusia
Directed by Dina Velikovskaya
Genres: comedy, coming-of-age, family
Tones: humorous, tender, whimsical
A girl's relationship with her grandfather, an eccentric inventor: a creative person can seem weird, funny and a little crazy, and even friends and family do not always understand him — but sometimes he can work miracles with a bit of junk.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a competent family film with whimsy, but there's nothing here that makes me sit up and ask 'wait, WHAT?' — the eccentric inventor grandfather is the oldest shorthand in the indie playbook, and the film doesn't subvert or interrogate it, just celebrates it.
A tender, formally controlled piece that understands the rhythms of coming-of-age cinema and the visual language of memory; the film sits comfortably in a lineage of European family portraiture, executed with genuine craft and restraint.
What elevates this beyond premise-level sweetness is Velikovskaya's decision to let the grandfather's junk inventions remain genuinely ambiguous — magical or just functional? — which lands everything on the girl's face and trust in a single moment, and that specificity transforms it from cute to genuinely moving.