Shoes and Hooves (Cipők és paták)
2024 · 15m · Hungary
Directed by Viktória Traub
Genres: animation, fantasy, romance
Tones: melancholic, sensual, surreal, whimsical
Paula, a centaur-girl working as a pedicurist in a small town of human-animal hybrids, longs to have human feet and falls in love with Arnold, a crocodile-man. As their romance deepens, both must choose between self-denial and self-acceptance.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Centaur pedicurist falls for a crocodile-man, body dysmorphia via hybrid anatomy — the Hungarian animation tradition can absolutely sell this and the premise is doing something genuinely strange. Fifteen minutes. Yes.
Using a centaur-pedicurist's longing for human feet as the literal site of body dysmorphia and queer self-acceptance is the kind of formal-figurative congruence that elevates animation. Fifteen minutes; the hybrid-anatomy logic is well-built.
15-minute Hungarian animation where character hybrid anatomy literally embodies body dysmorphia and queer self-acceptance — centaur-girl pedicurist's hooves as the site of conflict. Couldn't load the YouTube embed but the cast (Eliza Sodró, Ernő Fekete, Polett Dus, Dániel Zách) suggests this got a real performance treatment.
Reviews
This vivid, surreal, and sensual story ponders the price we pay when we sacrifice self-acceptance for the sake of someone else's affection.
This one feels really unique and special in how it looks at the ways different animal features could create advantages or disadvantages.
Festivals
- Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2024
- Guanajuato International Film Festival 2024, Best Animated Film
- Lund Fantastic Film Festival 2024, Méliès d'Argent – Best European Fantastic Genre Short Film
- Sitges Film Festival 2024
- Wrocław International Film Festival (Nowe Horyzonty) 2024, Top prize
- Viborg Animation Festival 2024
- Ottawa International Animation Festival 2024
- Vilnius Short Film Festival 2025