Best Animation
Yellow Daisy Butterfly
Cheri-lee is inconsolable when her Granny Daisy dies.
As Daisy ascends, she sees Cheri-lee’s grief, and returns
as a little white egg that transforms into a butterfly.
A metamorphosis that mirrors Cheri-lee’s stages of grief
As Daisy ascends, she sees Cheri-lee’s grief, and returns
as a little white egg that transforms into a butterfly.
A metamorphosis that mirrors Cheri-lee’s stages of grief
Diek Grobler
Director
Diek Grobler is a South African artist and animation director. His films for children have won awards at international festivals, such as Hiroshima (Japan 2018), Tindirindis (Lithuania 2009), and Teheran (Iran 2008). Grobler lives and works in Pretoria, South Africa
For all its poetry and conventionality, Yellow Daisy Butterfly has a rare quality that could be called life-like. It is a level of metaphor that allows us to succinctly formulate an image of something difficult to articulate, unconscious, such as fate, grief, love, childhood and other broad, but personal, private concepts. Animation in general is characterized by an acute, detailed relationship to whatever meanings the author is working with. “Yellow Daisy Butterfly” is an excellent example of a self- contained, calibrated and superbly crafted work.
Diek Grobler's work, at first glance, resembles a poem - upon closer inspection, there is no doubt about the poetic nature of “Daisy”. In the story, Sheri-Lee experiences the death of her beloved grandmother. The girl's grief triggers the life cycle of a butterfly, reflecting her stages of living the loss. The series of connections and metamorphoses presented in “Yellow Daisy Butterfly” is built on the principle of organizing rhythm and, of course, rhyme, which Diek Grobler handles carefully and very resourcefully. A butterfly's gaze is montaged with a grandmother's death stare, Sheri-Lee's yellow pointe shoes with a yellow cocoon, wildflowers with the girl herself. In “Yellow Daisy Butterfly,” everything intertwines, dances with each other, and blends together. It seemed that the synopsis sent by the director included the title of the original poetic work on which the movie was based.
“Yellow Daisy Butterfly” is naive, simple to the point of being laconic. The stylistic minimalism and layout of the presented world correspond to the dramaturgical objectives. The subtlety, sensitivity and delicacy necessary in the territory of children's animation. The author works exclusively with cinematic matter, with basic story-forming principles in their original form: the way of looking, transformations of space and character, montage rhymes, systemic motivations of metamorphoses, etc. Diek Grobler confidently utilizes the advantages of animation, which here, in the “poetic field,” would require a high degree of ingenuity, if not sophistication, from filmmakers and cameramen.
The world of “Daisy” is isolated, pure and therefore concentrated - each of its images is articulated from the variety of meanings that emerge from their careful development and accumulation. A striking contrast between the minimalism of pictorial conventionality and the depth - the details of the idea
Diek Grobler's work, at first glance, resembles a poem - upon closer inspection, there is no doubt about the poetic nature of “Daisy”. In the story, Sheri-Lee experiences the death of her beloved grandmother. The girl's grief triggers the life cycle of a butterfly, reflecting her stages of living the loss. The series of connections and metamorphoses presented in “Yellow Daisy Butterfly” is built on the principle of organizing rhythm and, of course, rhyme, which Diek Grobler handles carefully and very resourcefully. A butterfly's gaze is montaged with a grandmother's death stare, Sheri-Lee's yellow pointe shoes with a yellow cocoon, wildflowers with the girl herself. In “Yellow Daisy Butterfly,” everything intertwines, dances with each other, and blends together. It seemed that the synopsis sent by the director included the title of the original poetic work on which the movie was based.
“Yellow Daisy Butterfly” is naive, simple to the point of being laconic. The stylistic minimalism and layout of the presented world correspond to the dramaturgical objectives. The subtlety, sensitivity and delicacy necessary in the territory of children's animation. The author works exclusively with cinematic matter, with basic story-forming principles in their original form: the way of looking, transformations of space and character, montage rhymes, systemic motivations of metamorphoses, etc. Diek Grobler confidently utilizes the advantages of animation, which here, in the “poetic field,” would require a high degree of ingenuity, if not sophistication, from filmmakers and cameramen.
The world of “Daisy” is isolated, pure and therefore concentrated - each of its images is articulated from the variety of meanings that emerge from their careful development and accumulation. A striking contrast between the minimalism of pictorial conventionality and the depth - the details of the idea