The Shawl
2020 · 7m · USA
Directed by Sara Kiener
Genres: animation, documentary, romance
Two queer men reunite for a Stevie Nicks concert after years of long distance, and the evening takes on an almost mystical charge when one of Nicks' shawls seems to confirm what they already know about each other.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Kiener's debut demonstrates that documentary animation is at its most powerful when it makes interior experience visible — the way two people privately mythologize their love rendered as actual luminous image.
Animated documentary about queer reunion at a Stevie Nicks concert, real couple's testimony. Specific, weird, sincere — exactly the kind of small documentary that justifies itself.
Painterly animation rendering the testimony of a real queer couple at a Stevie Nicks concert — the heightening of memory gets its own visual register, which is exactly the right craft answer. Seven minutes of tender refraction.
Reviews
An exuberant little piece of animation that cuts a pair of goofball lovers loose and animates it for all the world to see.
Festivals
- Sundance Film Festival 2020