Here's the plant tonight.

  • Put on your coziest pajamas.
  • Order a pizza from your favorite local joint: gotta support the small businesses through these trying times.
  • Tip the delivery person well: 40% is a great idea in the US, 20% elsewhere. After all, they’re risking their lives.
  • Spray the box with some rubbing alcohol.
  • Put the pizza under the broiler or a hot oven for a minute just in case some germs accumulated.
  • Pour yourself a glass of red wine: it’s not only for fun, as red wine consumed in moderation also boosts immunity.
  • Put on a beautiful animated film and get lost in its imaginary world to distance yourself from the depressing reality of the pandemic.
  • Eat the crusts because they are delicious!
  • Repeat.

The pizza and the wine are on you. Meanwhile, we’ve got some animation recommendations. Some are on Netflix, others you’ll have to source depending on your location.

Here are the locations from which this edition’s creators came:

Perhaps staying inside your house all day makes you feel like you want to jump out of your body. Well, the unlikely protagonist of this animated gem, a hand without a body, knows exactly how that feels: and it doesn’t like it! Stay on the edge of your seat as you watch the brave hand make its way back, and tell the poignant story of the body’s owner, Naoufel.

FROM FRANCE:

The Extremity of Lossβ€”β€˜I Lost My Body’, dir. JΓ©rΓ©my Clapin, 2019

A severed hand seeks to be reunited with its body in a highly imaginative, morbid yet affable animated feature co-written by one of the authors of β€œAmelie” and nominated for the Oscars

I Lost My Body, JΓ©rΓ©my Clapin, movie, film poster

Those of us who are lucky to live in comparatively free societies, have it easy, despite the pandemic. Imagine if you had to stay home all the time, and not because it helped flatten the curve, but because you were avoiding a murderous regime. In this poetic animated rendering of a best-selling novel, young woman Zunaira hides away from the Taliban in the confines of her home in Kabul, until she is forced to leave it.

The Swallows of Kabul, Zabou Breitman, ElΓ©a GobbΓ©-MΓ©vellec, Movie poster

FROM FRANCE, AFGHANISTAN and ALGERIA:

Shrouded in Hopelessnessβ€”β€˜The Swallows of Kabul’, dir. Zabou Breitman & ElΓ©a GobbΓ©-MΓ©vellec, 2019

The lives of two couples waiting for their real-life to begin in Taliban-run Kabul are entwined in a heart-breaking animated adaptation of Yasmina Khadra’s novel

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Remember when you could go anywhere, you wanted? Remember the film festivals? Here is a look back at one delightful festival that happened in NYC earlier this year: an animation showcase at the Alliance FranΓ§aise. It was exhilarating, devastating, and convivial. And once we flatten this curve into the ground, we’ll have more. For now, let’s enjoy from your living room.

FROM ARGENTINA, CANADA, CZECH REPUBLIC, FRANCE, POLAND, PORTUGAL, RUSSIA and TAJIKISTAN:

6 Animated Shorts From New York City’s Animation First Festival 2020

Family memories, heart-wrenching puppets, thrilling technological advancements and a lot of dark, delicious humor from the world’s finest animators, including two Oscars nominees

Daughter, Daria Kashcheeva, movie poster

How’s that pizza? Might be a little salty from tears: a lot of these animations are real tear-jerkers. But it’s better to shed tears because of simulated animation characters than because of coronavirus-related anxiety.

We’ll come back soon with more animation recommendations, so stay tuned.

Much health to you, readers.

Hope you enjoy Supamodu and feel compelled to forward this email to your friends.

Thank you for being with us! πŸ’›

β€” Katya Kazbek,
editor-in-chief