Synopsis
In this visually compelling, colourful short, Petra Tolley performs a candid soliloquy about what it feels like to be “in the middle.” Petra has Down syndrome, and draws from her emotional experiences of living and working in the flux between societal order and personal chaos to produce a distinctive take on the social self. Shira AVNI employs rotoscopy and hand-drawn animation techniques to enhance and interact with Petra’s performance.

Program Note
Petra’s Poem is an animated documentary about the inner world of Petra TOLLEY, an artist with Down syndrome. For Petra, who often gets lost in between the chaotic world that exists inside her brain and the outside social order, space and time are flexible. The film transforms Petra’ s poems and performances into animation through a rotoscoping technique and captures different senses such as the isolation, confusion, pride, and intimacy of an artist with disability through the camera. Petra’s Poem is a fascinating animation that blurs the line between documentary and animation, director and main character, and disabled and non-disabled. [HONG So-in]