Oscar Shortlist Interviews: Director Sylwia Szkiłądź On Her Favorite Shot From ‘Autokar’ (EXCLUSIVE)

We invited the filmmakers behind each of this year’s 15 Oscar-shortlisted animated shorts to share their favorite shot from their film and explain why it’s special to them.

Nomination voting starts on January 12 and runs through January 16.

Today’s profile features director Sylwia Szkiłądź’s favorite shot from the charming hand-drawn fairy tale Autokar. The short follows 8-year-old Agata as she emigrates, unsupervised, from Poland to Belgium in the 1990s. During the border-crossing bus journey, a lost pencil leads the girl on a dreamlike exploration beneath the seats and up and down the aisle, where she encounters fantastic animal passengers. Through the eyes of a young girl, the hardships of migration become a magical-realist adventure discovery.

Here’s the clip, and why Szkiłądź picked it as her favorite:

The scene with the Sparrow Lady and the little girl, at night, is a very important moment for me in the film. The Sparrow Lady represents the ancestors — those who preserve memory and connect us to our roots. She knits socks, an object that brings warmth, that allows us to stand upright, in contact with the earth. She is a grandmother visiting her grandchildren, and she knits for them.

The Sparrow Lady reminds me of my own grandmother, who passed away two years before I made this film. She used to send me socks she had knitted by hand, from Poland to Belgium. I love the animation of this character, the way she moves. We never see her eyes, hidden beneath her hat: she carries within her a kind of sadness, discreet and modest. I didn’t want to show her gaze. I also like that she turns off the light to better see the little girl in the darkness.

The character’s dialogue is performed by Anna Seniuk, a renowned Polish actress. Working with her was a real joy: she immediately understood what I expected from this role. Her warm, calm, slightly mysterious voice brings the Sparrow Lady to life exactly as I had imagined.