Adam Elliot’s Annecy-Winning Feature ‘Memoir Of A Snail’ Debuts Trailer

IFC Films has released the first American trailer for Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail, the winner of the top prize for a feature film at Annecy earlier this year.

The Australian animated feature is due to be released October 25 in the United States, with broader expansion in November. It will have its North American premiere this weekend at the Telluride Film Festival and will also screen next month at the Ottawa Int’l Animation Festival.

Notably, the month of October will be jam-packed with theatrical animation releases. Besides Elliot’s latest, there is also Look Back (GKIDS, Oct. 4), Scarygirl (Viva Pictures, Oct. 4), My Hero Academia: You’re Next (Toho International, Oct. 11), and Piece by Piece (Focus Features, Oct. 11). What’s remarkable about this group of films is how different each one is from the others. Not a single one of these releases is a four-quadrant movie from a major, and each fills a unique niche in the market with potential to find its own audience.

Memoir of a Snail certainly won’t be confused with any of the other films on the list. The stop-motion feature is described as “a heartfelt and hilarious chronicle of the life of an outsider finding her confidence and silver linings amongst the clutter of everyday life.” If you’ve seen Elliot’s other shorts and features (e.g. the Academy Award winning Harvie Krumpet or Mary and Max), you know what to expect by now – narration-heavy storytelling, lugubrious characters and animation, and quirkiness to the max.

Here’s the more detailed official synopsis:

Grace Pudel is a book-loving, snail-collecting misfit that falls into a series of misfortunes after being separated from her twin brother Gilbert. Despite her hardships, inspiration and hope arise when Grace begins a friendship with an eccentric elderly woman named Pinky.

Voice cast includes Sarah Snook, Eric Bana, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Dominique Pinon, Nick Cave, Magda Szubanski, and Jacki Weaver.