‘My Stuffed Granny’ by Effie Pappa

‘My Stuffed Granny’ is a stop frame puppets movie which depicts hope during the Greek sociopolitical and economical crisis. Based on a story by Nina Kouletaki, it’s about a little girl (Sophia) experiencing the crisis from her innocent perspective, offering a satirical and ‘spicy’ view on things. The intention behind Sophia’s character development is to incarnate the young generation in Greece that, despite the misfortunes and mistakes made in the country in the past, needs to stand up, and be creative and persistent in order to build the future’s path.

“I moved away from Greece during the economical collapse and political and social turmoil. I felt like I’m running away from it and I had to raise my voice with one way or another. On my way I met Nina Kouletaki’s fantastic ‘essay’ on this little girl (Sophia) experiencing the crisis from her innocent perspective offering such a satirical and ‘spicy’ witness. Boom! I became Sophia, modified the story a bit and we made ‘My Stuffed Granny’.

I wanted the characters and environment to look as close to the reality as possible. The interior of the house, the neighborhood, the puppets, the costumes. We came up with a whole background story on what happened to these people before we get to meet them in this story and we tried to imprint these elements in every little tiny asset existing in this film. I believe there’s another level of engagement in a space full of handcrafts imitating real life objects and materials such as the plastered broken walls, the tiled floor, Sophia’s wooden toys, her drawings on the fridge etc. There is something that does actually exist in real time and space regardless the film life.

The intention behind Sophia’s character development is to incarnate the young generation in Greece that, despite the misfortunes and mistakes taken place in the country in the past, needs to stand up creative and persistent in order to build the future’s path. There are many things we can learn from history and it’s a great opportunity to go onwards and up front if we get to read it carefully.”

Effie Pappa creates short films, music videos, theatrical shows, educational videos and commercials. ‘My Stuffed Granny’ was awarded the prestigious McLaren Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2014.