Vinnie Ann Bose’s animation short Sulaimani is as sumptuous as the Kerala cuisine that it celebrates. The film features food that is not just about aromas and flavours, but an aide in forging a bond between strangers. A lunchbox, accidentally left behind in the metro, brings two immigrant Malayali women together in an Indian restaurant in Paris. Widely different in their personalities, choices, and reasons for moving to France, food is the keeper of their shared memories (good and bad) of home, the thread of community and culture that binds and a marker of their self-actualization in exile.
The stop motion animation is wonderfully vivid. Be it the rolling of the parottas (flaky flatbread), or the practice among men of lifting the bottom hem of the mundu (unstitched garment tied at the midriff) with the flick of the leg to tuck in the waist, the visuals are stunning in their details.
Vinnie Ann Bose
Vinnie Ann Bose, born in Kerala, India, studied Animation Film Design at NID Ahmedabad. In 2016, she moved to France to attend l’École de la Poudrière. Following the success of her graduation films, What is your Brown Number? and Dimanche Matin, she directed her first professional short film Sulaimani.
