2027 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘Daughters Of The Late Colonel’ Director Lizzy Hobbs

Welcome to Cartoon Brew’s spotlight series on animated shorts that have qualified for the 2027 Oscars. Films in this series qualified through one of three routes: winning an Oscar-qualifying award at a film festival, screening theatrically, or winning a Student Academy Award.

Today’s short is Lizzy Hobbs’ Daughters of the Late Colonel, an adaptation of Katherine Mansfield’s 1921 short story, produced by Animate Projects Productions, Fabian&Fred, and Phil Davies Films. Animated with ink and paint on paper, the film features the voices of Loo Brealey, Lucy Trodd, and Simon Kunz. It qualified for Oscar consideration by winning best animated short at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

Following the death of their overbearing father, two middle-aged sisters begin to work out what a life without his direction might look like. Hobbs preserves much of Mansfield’s dialogue and its affectionate humor, while giving the sisters more room to challenge the habits that have shaped their lives. Sparse lines, shifting autumnal colors, and loops of repetitive household tasks capture both their confinement and the tentative possibility of change.

Cartoon Brew: What was it about this story or concept that connected with you and compelled you to direct the film?

Lizzy Hobbs: I was particularly drawn to the themes and characters in Katherine Mansfield’s 1921 short story Daughters of the Late Colonel.  There’s so much humor and warmth in her depiction of two middle-aged women trying to work out what their life will be like following the death of their overbearing father.  The original dialogue in the short story expressed so much about the characters, so we kept as close as we could to the original words in our adaptation, and the three actors brought so much to the film in the way that they interpreted the words.  Over the last 25 years, I have enjoyed working with feminist tales like The Debutante (2022) and G-AAAH (2015), but I also realize that I’ve made a lot of other films about men dying,  so I think that’s a theme that I like too! (The Emperor (2001), The Old, Old, Very Old Man (2005), The True Story of Sawney Beane (2005), Imperial Provisor Frombald (2013), and I’m OK (2018)).

What did you learn through the experience of making this film, either production-wise, filmmaking-wise, creatively, or about the subject matter?

Making this film was another milestone and celebration of our small team: producer Abigail Addison, editor Mark Jenkins, and composer Hutch Demouilpied.  We have been collaborating for many years, so when we were able to get some funding for the production thanks to Fabian&Fred and Phil Davies Films, it felt so joyful to have the space and time to be working on this film together.  And although I didn’t quite know what the film would be like at the end of the process, the film that we have made is exactly the film that I hoped to make.

Can you describe how you developed your visual approach to the film? Why did you settle on this style/technique?

Each frame has been drawn or painted on paper with ink and paint; everything in the frame is painted at the same time, quite quickly, including the background. Sometimes I draw all the frames for one shot on one large piece of paper.  I often animate the same shot again and again, reducing the line or color or movement until it feels fresh and lightly done.  In this film, I particularly enjoyed using small loops for the daughters’ repetitive household tasks, and reducing the father to a simple eyeball drawn in pencil during his last moments.  If I can be really efficient with the lines and colors, there’s more space for the sound or the score; for example, the trumpet is working especially hard on behalf of the father in this film. I also hope that not describing everything too much leaves a little work for the audience to do when they watch the film.

How did you approach giving the two sisters distinct personalities while maintaining their sense of shared experience?

The two sisters have different roles to each other;  the older one is more forthright, the younger a little bit feeble. They are siblings who are so familiar that they bicker a little bit, but know and love and protect each other.  They are beautifully performed by Loo Brealy and Lucy Trodd, while Simon Kunz brilliantly played all the men that they could respond to with such humor.  In the original story, the author Katherine Mansfield wasn’t so optimistic about how the sisters would manage without their father to direct their lives, but in our version of the story, they at least discovered what they didn’t want. We see them meet the challenges they faced one by one, using the tools that they had available.