The colorful warnings of childhood lead to very literal consequences in Mum Is Always Right, the stop-motion graduation short by Marie Urbánková, created at UMPRUM (The Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design; Prague). The director wanted to explore what would happen if, say, picking your nose really did turn it into a trunk, or eating a seed meant a watermelon grew in your belly.
“I have a friend who was told by her mum that she must not pee in the sea, as it will burn her if she does. To this day when she is 26, she doesn’t dare to pee in the sea, even though she knows it’s nonsense,” Urbánková explains. “It occurred to me how many similar nonsensical statements there must be.” To develop the concept, she asked around and collected about a hundred similar ‘childhood traumas.’
“When I was wondering what to do for my dissertation, I wanted to do something completely simple and fun,” she adds. “I was very inspired by the film Enough (dir. Anna Mantzaris, 2018); I admire its sheer simplicity and wit.”
Mum Is Always Right is animated in stop motion on a multiplane table (an animation table with a number of layered glass panes holding different elements which combine into a complete image). Urbánková used colored paper as the main material, a technique she honed for backgrounds and props in her previous film, The Concrete Jungle (2019).
“In her new film, Marie did not work with silicone puppets, but she tried out puppets made of paper. These do not behave as flats but as three-dimensional puppets. In other words, paper hands move in space, not just on the animator‘s glass table,” notes Mária Môťovská, the producer from MAUR film.
Mum Is Always Right is intended for adult viewers, but also holds entertaining appeal for children. “Primarily, I‘d like the film to be funny, but at the same time make people think a bit — maybe subconsciously — about what we tell children,” adds Urbánková.
The short has its world premiere on April 3 at the Go Short – International Short Film Festival Nijmegen in the Netherlands. The Czech premiere will be at Anifilm in Liberec (May 10-15). Mum Is Always Right is also slated to screen at the Zlín International Film Festival for Children and Youth (May 25-June 1).
Urbánková is a talented animator, artist and illustrator. The Concrete Jungle has screened around the world at dozens of festivals, including Monstra, KLIK! Amsterdam (now Kaboom) and Hiroshima. She has long been dedicated to illustrating children’s books, and was the artist for the animated series Kosmix (2020).
