EXCLUSIVE: Animation has been used in innovative ways in a number of notable documentaries – Flee, Waltz with Bashir, Tower, Feels Good Man, Eternal Spring, in portions of Frida, among other films. But there’s never been an animated documentary quite like Endless Cookie.
The film directed by Seth and Peter Scriver makes its world premiere in World Cinema Documentary Competition on Saturday at the Sundance Film Festival. We have your first look at the feature doc in the clip below.
“Through a series of vignettes – some tragic, some funny, all a little bizarre,” notes a synopsis, “this animated feature documentary explores the complex bond between two half brothers, one Indigenous, one white, spanning bustling 1980s Toronto to the present day isolated First Nations community of Shamattawa [Manitoba].”
The half-brothers in question would be the filmmakers – Seth and Peter. They have been “painstakingly assembling” the documentary for the last 8 years.
“Endless Cookie is based on true stories told by Peter, a mixed race (Indigenous and white) resident of the Shamattawa First Nation in Manitoba, with animations by Seth; a white Toronto-based artist, director, and half-brother to Peter through their shared white father,” the half-siblings write in a joint director’s statement.
“At the heart of the film is the relationship with each other and to the family as a whole. Wanting to engage with the complexity of that relationship by speaking about race and identity in a frank way that is both personal and political. Peter’s stories explore life in Shamattawa in its comical and fraught aspects, both within the natural landscape and the ongoing colonial project. The film documents & animates Peter’s experiences as well as those of the family in Toronto.
“The animation is set in Pete’s living room where Seth is attempting to record a series of stories. The centerpiece is an attempted recounting of a gruesome encounter with a beaver trap that is continually disrupted by the various happenings of everyday life on the reserve; family, neighbors, the constant thrum of media. The interruptions in turn lead to other stories, set pieces and anecdotes, linked together through an associative and poetic logic…”
In addition to Saturday’s world premiere, Endless Cookie will screen on Jan. 26, Jan. 31 and Feb. 2 in Park City and on Jan. 28 in Salt Lake City. It will be available online from Jan. 30-Feb. 2.
Endless Cookie is written and directed by Seth Scriver and Pete Scriver, and produced by Daniel Bekerman, Chris Yurkovich, Alex Ordanis, Jason Ryle, and Seth Scriver. The executive producers are Neil Mathieson and Jordan Hart.
The film is an acquisition title at Sundance. MAGNIFY holds global sales rights, including for the U.S.
Sundance programmer Shari Frilot describes the film as an “endearing handcrafted animated hangout film.” Frilot writes in the festival program, “Sharply observed and rooted in an Indigenous resistance to colonialism, Endless Cookie is a smart, fun-to-watch documentary that sits gentle in its own skin. Pete and Seth offer an oral history and a cosmic vision as they unravel their bittersweet testimonials of life under the Cacanada sun.”
Watch a clip from Endless Cookie here:
