Village of Idiots
1999 · 12m · Canada
Directed by Eugene Fedorenko, Rose Newlove
Genres: animation, comedy, satire
Tones: absurdist, contemplative, whimsical
In this animated Jewish folk tale, Shmendrik leaves his Polish village of Chelm in search of knowledge, only to arrive in a new Chelm uncannily like the one he left behind.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A circular joke about futility wrapped in folk-tale drag—but the premise collapses under its own symmetry, and the whimsy feels like it's winking at you rather than letting the absurdity breathe.
A elegant formal meditation on Jewish folklore's recursive logic, animated with restraint; the doubling structure echoes Hasidic parable traditions while the 1999 execution positions it between classic NFB craft and contemporary art cinema.
The animation decision to render both Chelms identically—same buildings, same citizens, same logic—is the move that transforms a travel story into something genuinely unsettling, achieved on what was clearly a modest budget through committed visual repetition.