Canadian artist and blogger Maryse de la Giroday (left) sent us these comments about short stop frame animation 'Cogas' (2013) directed by Michela Anedda (right) and recently featured at terre di confine filmfestival in March 2017.
We are honoured to reproduce these comments with Maryse's permission.
Read Maryse's blog (started in 2008) at FrogHeart - Commentary about nanotech, science policy and communication, society, and the arts. More about her here; watch her video presentation 'Whose Electric Brain?' (2012).
Watch Michela Anedda's short Cogas on Vimeo; see also Cogas' FB page.
Thanks Maryse, thanks Michela!

"There is so much about Cogas it's hard to start ... so here are a few of my ramblings.

I love the darkness of the story and that I don't understand everything that happens ... even after watching it everal times ... 

The twist at the end works so perfectly ... The artwork is beautiful ... I loved the first scenes in the coga's home .. how the shots of the table and the wall with the masks are a bit fuzzy and then pulled into sharp focus ... The trees in the graveyard and in the forest added greatly to the mystery and the sense that some things might be better left alone.

The spare quality of the sound and  the music enhanced the story (I sometimes find music in soundtracks to be overbearing and intrusive).

My sympathies were with the Coga ... possibly due to my own age ... after all, she needed to quench her thirst unless she wanted to suffer a painful death.

I wanted to pet the first cat (until it started eating the baby) ... I think it was the quality of the fur and, of course, those appealing eyes ... the second cat didn't seem to be as cute ... of course by then, I knew what was supposed to happen ... the purring prior to the killing (or attempted killing) was a great touch.

When the girl returned from reading in the woods, there's that interesting moment where you see a wall with a mask and something else (peppers?) ... it's like the wall in the Coga's home.

The use of the drums was interesting ... I like how they signaled the quickening pace ... in a fanciful moment on my part, they seemed to echo my quickening heartbeat.

The edit from the Coga's hand to the girl's hand and then the edit from the young girl coughing to the Coga's coughing suggests a relationship between them .. in retrospect ... 

The vengeance scene and the comeuppance: the Coga who hisses with the catlike mouth, having her tail cut off, and becoming a baby, and the way it leads into the fairy tale that the little girl reads with its 'happily ever after ending' makes the twist (where you find out the little girl murdered her parents) that much more satisfying.

Also, the little girl's thirst, the cat's meow, and the snap of the fingers suggest that she might be a Coga or not ... perhaps the little girl is another type of evil.

The voice actress was very good ... I thought her work set the story perfectly.

It was exquisite ... the uncertainty ... the twists ... the shadows ... children ... witches ... the secret ... the blood ... oh, the blood droplets at the beginning for the words ... and all of it in a deceptively simple story that brought me to a place where stories begin ... their essence, if you will ... 

By the way I see Michela raised money through Indiegogo. I was glad to read about the origins of the story and to find it out a little more about the work ... It was a privilege to watch the piece."