Following her first collaboration with director Adam Elliott’s Mary and Max released in 2009, Australian composer/pianist Elena Kats-Chernin once again wrote the music for the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s new feature-length claymation, Memoir of a Snail (2024).
Entered in competition in the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival (one of the world leading animated film festivals), the claymation has won one of its top awards, the Cristal for a Feature Film, in June 2024.
Featuring the voices of an star-studded lineup of award-winning actors including Sarah Snook, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Dominique Pinon, Jacki Weaver, Eric Bana, Paul Capsis, Nick Cave, and more, Memoir of a snail is set to open the Melbourne International Film Festival on August 8, 2024.
As described in Hollywood’s Deadline: “Following 2009’s Mary and Max, Memoir of a Snail is only the second Claymation feature from Australia’s Adam Elliot, who won an Oscar for his short film Harvey Krumpet in 2003. Elliot makes films unlike anyone else’s: quirky, intimate, minutely observed, melancholy and funny in equal measure and very obviously made of clay. That homespun quality, coupled with the engaging voice Succession star Sarah Snook brings to the long-suffering Gracie, turn an ostensibly bleak story into a life-affirming pleasure.”
Described by ScreenDaily as “As hilarious as it is heart-wrenching”, critical acclaim garnered by the film and score by Elena Kats-Chernin includes:
- “Equally as powerful is the film’s timeless and tender score, by Australian classical composer Elena Kats-Chernin.”
– ScreenDaily, June 2024 - “Accompanying it all is a striking score by classical composer Elena Kats-Chernin, played with gusto by the Australian Chamber Orchestra and enhanced by passages of vocalizing from soprano Jane Sheldon.”
– The Hollywood Reporter, 2024
Watch the official trailer on Youtube here.
Supported by Screen Australia, and distributed by Madman Films, ‘Memoir of a Snail’ will be released in Australian cinemas on October 17, 2024.
(NB. The film is an adult animated drama, not recommended for young children).