Animation has redefined itself – it keeps surprising and captivating us, which is why RIGA IFF offers a selection of seven animated short films for adults. Highlighting the current landscape of French animated cinema, this unique screening will showcase a selection of short films curated by the French Animation Film Association (AFCA), drawn from the Rennes National Animation Film Festival, where the best French animated films meet.

The seven short films in this screening are united by an interest in childlike maturity and wise youthfulness in women’s lives. In these shorts, the body, memory, language, family and surrounding environment shape the identity of a person, and sometimes play a decisive role in “dismantling” it. The body suddenly becomes an object of public discussion; an innocent lie threatens to ruin a date; a mother’s love becomes a reason to flee into the forest; and thoughts of the future turn into a rather nerve-wracking encounter with one’s past self.

Seven reasons to look more closely and less seriously at yourself and others, and to celebrate animated film.

Foreword by the programme curator: A fascinating braid of seven stories, interweaving the prickliness of adolescence, horror shivers in a forest cabin, night-time mystery and warmth, and the anxiety of meeting someone. Seven pieces of kaleidoscope glass, each with its own emotional hue, and layered together, they form the beautiful, multicoloured pattern that a woman's life is.