My Year of Dicks
2022 · 25m · USA
Directed by Sara Gunnarsdóttir
Genres: animation, comedy, coming-of-age
Tones: darkly comic, humorous, melancholic, tender
It's 1991 in suburban Houston, and Pam — a stubborn, imaginative 15-year-old — embarks on a five-chapter comedic journey through disappointment and self-discovery as she pursues a series of boys in hopes of losing her virginity and becoming the 'fully realized woman' she's imagined herself to be. Based on Pamela Ribon's 2014 comedic memoir.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Five chapters of teenage horniness, each in a different animation style — Oscar-nominated and earns it, because the form actually does something. The opposite of the polite shorts above.
Pamela Ribon's memoir refracted through five chapter-shifting animation styles by Sara Gunnarsdóttir, Academy Award-nominated and rightly so — the visual language as character is exactly the formal gesture animation should be making. Essential.
Twenty-five minutes where each of five chapters shifts animation style entirely — horror, anime, rotoscoping, surrealism, skate-video — to reflect each boy's internal perspective is the kind of structural-craft choice that earns the Academy Award nomination. Pamela Ribon adapting her own memoir keeps the voice authentic.
Reviews
Blends anime, horror, skate video, and cringe comedy... genuinely innovative compared to other nominees. The Oscar absolutely should have gone to this film.
Punk and loving, a great film that leads with empathy and love first-and-foremost... magic from idea to construction, from animation to sound to voice acting.
Festivals
- SXSW Film Festival 2022, Special Jury Recognition — Unique Vision in Writing and Directing
- Annecy International Animated Film Festival 2022, Cristal for Best TV Production
- Brooklyn Film Festival 2022, Best Animation
- Chicago International Film Festival 2022, Silver Hugo — Best Animated Short
- Raindance Film Festival 2022, Jury Award
- Ottawa International Animation Festival 2022
- Academy Awards 2023, Nominated