The Stained Club
2018 · 6m · France
Directed by Mélanie Lopez, Simon Boucly, Marie Ciesielski, Alice Jaunet, Chan Stéphie Peang, Béatrice Viguier
Tones: melancholic, tender
Finn, a lonely boy covered in mysterious blue glowing stains, is thrilled when he meets a gang of cool kids who also bear unusual marks on their skin. Their shared difference becomes a bond — until he discovers the dark truth behind where the stains come from.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Six directors steering a metaphor about abuse through glowing skin marks should be a disaster, but instead it's weirdly restrained—refuses the obvious heavy-handedness and lets the visual do the unsettling work, which is the move a contrarian respects.
The formal rigor here is quietly devastating: translating Strassheim's photographic logic into animation creates a lineage between contemporary trauma photography and children's animation that most programmers won't see coming, and the restraint of the palette and editing proves these filmmakers understand exactly what they're building.
The decision to make the stains glow—to render abuse as luminous rather than grotesque—is the single craft choice that elevates what could be heavy-handed into something that lands in the body; a six-person collaboration that somehow coheres around that one visual instinct.
Reviews
A bittersweet animation that pairs fabulous design with emotional storytelling.
Packs an emotional punch — despite the cute and smooth animation, viewers come to understand what the stains mean and why they look different on each child.
Festivals
- SIGGRAPH 2019, Jury's Choice Award
- Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2019
- Student Academy Awards 2019