ANIMAL explores the concept of animation. Creating a parallel between the “uncanny valley” of the archaic tradition of puppetry and recent technological developments in robotics and artificial intelligence, the film is inspired by a series of conversations with scientists and researchers from the robotics labs at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). Footage from the EPFL alternates with images from the ancient Carlo Colla & Figli Marionette Company in Milan. The structure of the film resembles both an inventory of images and an audiobook, combining the aseptic atmospheres of scientific laboratories with the archaic dimension of puppetry, weaving together these figures and punctuating them with black frames.