Winner of the Jury Prize and Best French Film award at the Annecy Animation Festival, The Girl Without Hands is a breathtakingly beautiful fairytale unafraid of its Grimm origins.

The title is quite literal. A miller accidentally sells his daughter to the devil. But when the devil is unable to corrupt the girl, he demands her father chop off her hands. Understandably, she runs away and eventually meets and marries a kind and handsome prince. Before you can say ‘they lived happily ever after’, the prince is called away to war and the girl is left to raise their child alone – a task she proves entirely capable of, even without hands.

Acclaimed short-filmmaker Sébastien Laudenbach makes his feature debut with this exquisite, surprisingly feminist fable. Writing, directing, editing and animating entirely on his own, his film is a solo passion project that takes an unvarnished approach to a lesser-known Brothers Grimm tale, warts and all. But Laudenbach’s remarkable hand-painted illustrations soften the brothers’ harsher edges without sugarcoating them, while his almost impressionistic brush strokes and shimmering Fauvist colours lend an appropriately dreamlike quality to the proceedings.

"A dazzlingly imaginative movie about survival." – The New York Times

MIFF recommends this film as suitable for ages 15+