Aunt Hilda!

Jacques-Rémy Girerd, creator of A Cat in Paris and Mia and the Migoo, returns to NYICFF with his latest hand-drawn gem, Aunt Hilda!, a glorious throwback to the flower power classics like Yellow Submarine and The Point. Hilda lives high above the city, happily at home with tens of thousands of rare and luscious plants in her palace of a greenhouse. But down below, a new, genetically modified super-grain threatens to disrupt the delicate natural harmony. Distributed by the diabolical, money-and-honey-hungry Dolores, head of the DOLO Corporation, the bio-engineered monstrosity is promoted as the solution to world hunger — but only Hilda can see the inevitable danger and destruction it will cause. There’s a controlled chaos to the loosely-drawn, watercolor-dripped animation style that mirrors the characters’ over-the-top personalities. The corpulent Dolores is depicted in all her fleshy glory teetering on high heels, or barely contained in her overflowing hot tub office — while Hilda swooshes across the screen, color trailing behind, Lucy In the Sky-like, as she tends to her flowerpots or does battle with the agents of power and greed. The film’s not-so-subtle eco-message (no nuanced arguments here!) builds to a suitably cataclysmic, technology-gone-haywire finale, as the destructive power of the Frankenplant is unleashed and Hilda must help the Earth save itself from a very colorful biological mayhem.