Being a working artist, regardless of the medium, is not an easy path. While it can be ultimately rewarding on a personal level, I think it’s safe to say that most artists also want validation and, dare we say, praise for reaching the goal in creating something and translating it from the artist’s mind into something physical and tangible. But what happens when the artist’s mind might not stable? If the foundation is faulty, what can we expect out of what is being created? Will it damage the creative process more or possibly the artist directly?

Ella (Aisling Franciosi) is a stop-motion filmmaker who currently assists her mother Suzanne, also a stop-motion filmmaker, in making a new film. The process isn’t collaborative other than the physicality of it as Suzanne’s hands are not able to physically work at the capacity needed to move objects a few millimeters at a time for each frame to provide the illusion of stop-motion animation. Ella is becoming the physical companion of her mother’s artistic work but it seems like it is not the most harmonious union as Ella wants to play and explore her expressions and opinions but her artistic development and process are hindered by the film not being her project. Ella is, as she puts it, “the hands” while her mother is “the brains”. When her mother’s condition worsens, Ella initially decides to continue work on the film. That is until she meets a little girl who persuades her to tell a different story, one that Ella might be more interested in as a narrative. While the little girl provides the spark needed to provide Ella with the drive to create something new, Ella finds herself in a similar situation she did with her mother – physically creating a narrative that does not come from her mind.