Animator and filmmaker Torill Kove’s Maybe Elephants has been shortlisted among 15 films for the Academy Award for animated short film at the 97th Oscars. The film was created in collaboration with Norway’s Mikrofilm and Canada’s National Film Board (NFB).
The 16-minute short is an autobiographical homage to family, adolescence and the therapeutic power of memories, however unreliable they might be. This film reunites the cast of Kove’s previous Oscar nominee, Me and My Moulton.
The film’s synopsis reads: In the ’70s, three rebellious teenage daughters, a restless mother, a father struggling with potatoes, and maybe some elephants, find themselves in bustling Nairobi —and the family will never be the same. Narrated by Kove, the film wraps nostalgia around memories of eventful family trips, timeless teen antics and those inevitable moments of adolescent epiphany bursting with wit, a joyful colour palette and an energetic soundscape.
Since its world premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France, the film has been selected by more than 30 festivals around the world. This film marks the fourth collaboration of Kove – a Norwegian-born filmmaker living in Canada – with the NFB and Mikrofilm AS.
The film was made with the collaboration of several Kenyan Canadians who played the roles of Kenyan characters and with whom Kove consulted on Swahili language and Kenyan culture. Mikrofilm’s Lise Fearnley and Tonje Skar Reiersenand, and NFB’s Maral Mohammadian have produced the short. It is executive produced by NFB’s Robert McLaughlin and Michael Fukushima.
Kove’s previous films My Grandmother Ironed the King’s Shirts, Me and My Moulton and The Danish Poet have been nominated for Academy Awards, of which The Danish Poet won the Oscar in 2007. Her films are known for her expressive designs and playful and poignant autobiographical themes. She recently received a lifetime achievement award from Canada’s Spark Animation festival which takes place in Vancouver.
Below are the awards won by Maybe Elephants:
- Canadian Film Prize, Spark Animation, Vancouver (2024)
- Audience Prize for Short Film, Bucheon International Animation Festival, South Korea (2024)
- Best Nordic-Baltic Animated Youth Film, Fredrikstad Animation Festival, Norway (2024)
- Prix animé TVA Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Festival du cinéma international en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Rouyn-Noranda (2024)
