TRICHOTILLOMANIA!
2021 · 4m · USA
Directed by Kelly Schiesswohl
Genres: animation, dark comedy, documentary
Tones: dark, humorous, melancholic, surreal, tense
A young woman Googles why she compulsively pulls out her hair, only to spiral deeper into internet-fueled anxiety and self-diagnosis confusion in this autobiographical animated short about living with trichotillomania.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Pandemic-bedroom $50 solo project mixing 2D, felt stop-motion, and live-action chaos about a Google-spiral — exactly the unpolished texture I want from autobiographical animation. Yes.
Made solo on $50 in a childhood bedroom during lockdown, blending hand-drawn 2D with felt stop-motion and live action — the formal overload directly enacts the cognitive overload of the disorder. Genuine outsider energy.
Four minutes made entirely solo on a $50 pandemic-lockdown budget in the director's childhood bedroom, blending 2D hand-drawn animation with felt stop-motion and live-action interruptions, deliberately overloaded with visual and auditory information — that production constraint matches the anxious subject precisely. Maximum mileage from minimum resources.
Reviews
Confidently conceived, TRICHOTILLOMANIA! is a dazzling labour of love with every scene so overloaded with visual and auditory information that it might require a second or even a third watch.
It's this decision to poke fun at a serious issue that makes it so loveable and fun to watch.
Festivals
- Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival 2021
- Fantastic Fest 2021
- Florida Film Festival 2021
- ASIFA East Animation Festival 2021
- Pictoplasma 2021
- Sweaty Eyeballs Animation Festival 2021