Éloïse, Little Dreamer by Myriam Obin

It's a day of celebration in the city streets, and everybody is wearing masks and making noise. However, a little girl discovers that things are not what they appear to be. Her only solution is to find her big sister in this crowd of faceless strangers before she gets squashed by them.

The 4-minute Éloïse, Little Dreamer (Éloïse, petite rêveuse) uses the well-known symbol of a mask not to discuss the supernatural and the otherworldly, but to protest against police repression seen through the eyes of a lost child.

Watch 'Éloïse, Little Dreamer'

The film cleverly (and symbolically) aligns itself with the story of a little girl in a world where big figures are tantamount to great danger.  The question of height is paramount in the beautifully lit animation short; low-angle shots, which disguise and cause terror, find their match in the last shot, where little Éloïse can rise above the crowds and be able to dream from above.

Éloïse, Little Dreamer has won the #PolskaFree25 competition award, the NYICFF award for Best International Animation Film, and has been presented at 50 international film festivals.

Myriam L. Obin is a graduate student from the University of Concordia at the Mel Hoppenheim school of cinema in Canada.  She also studied at Paris (Beaux-Arts), and has published a comic book as well, working also as an illustrator.