Jul 12, 2023

Four women reflect on the changing relationships across generations in Grandma's Sex Life.

Urška Djuki? and Émilie Pigeard's "The Sex Life of Grandma" is one of the most popular animated short films in Europe in the last few years and is now streaming online.

The film is based on Milena Miklav? y's book "Don't Play with Fire, Asses, and Snakes," and is based on anonymous testimonies collected in the book. In the film, four elderly women reflect on their memories of their youth when they were treated like objects by their abusive and uncaring husbands.

"Grandma's Sex Life" is a patchwork of stories, each of which is focused and clear. The use of simple, unified imagery throughout, with only one character design for the adult male characters in the film, and the director's aesthetic choices serve to emphasize the universality of the abuse suffered by the women whose stories are told.

While the film's animation is enjoyable, its themes are serious, including issues of domestic violence and spousal rape. However, "Grandma's Sex Life," like the original book, deals with the darker aspects of the story in a matter-of-fact manner. The act is not presented literally, but only through visual metaphors. Whereas many films use inanimate objects to represent R-rated parts of the human anatomy, "Grandma's Sex Life" does the opposite, using phallic objects as weapons and women's bodies as buildings that husbands enter and leave at will.

"Granny's Sexual Life" was produced by Studio Virc, Slovenia, and Ikki Films, France, with support from ARTE Television, CNC, and Ciclic Animation Residency. The film was screened at major film festivals including Annecy, Clermont-Ferrand, and Tallinn Black Night. The film won the French Academy César Award for Best Animated Short Film, the European Film Award for Best Animated Short Film, and numerous awards at international film festivals such as Animética, Slovenian Film Festival, and Uppsala.