Synopsis

"Mary and Max" is a simple tale of pen-friendship between two very different people; Mary Dinkle, a chubby lonely 8-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max Horovitz, a 44-year-old, severely obese, Jewish man with Asperger's Syndrome living in the chaos of New York. Spanning 20 years and 2 continents, Mary and Max's friendship survives much more than the average diet of life's ups and downs. Mary and Max is innocent but not naive, as it takes us on a journey that explores friendship, autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, sexual difference, trust, copulating dogs, religious difference, agoraphobia and much much more.

Adam Elliot

Academy Award winning writer/director, Adam Benjamin Elliot, is a celebrated independent animator. After discerning his artistic abilities at an early age, he spent five years learning about different art forms, ranging from photography to sculpture and ceramics. While completing these studies at the Victorian College of Arts in 1996, he made the first part of his claymation trilogy of shorts, inspired by his family, “Uncle”, which was hugely successful in Australia. “Cousin” and “Brother” completed the trio, followed in 2003 by “Harvie Krumpet”. These films have since collectively participated in over five hundred film festivals world-wide and notched up more than a hundred awards between them, including the Special Jury, Audience and Fipresci Awards at Annecy 2003 and Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 2004 for the poignant biography of the accident-prone emigrant Harvie. Adam Elliot has a passion for human observation. His films are highly personal and are based on the detailed analysis of the people around him.


Selected awards: Posebno priznanje žirija mladih / Youth Jury Special Mention (Berlin IFF), Posebno priznanje žirija / Special Jury Mention (Berlinale Kids)


Selected festival history: Sundance IFF, Annecy