My Life as a Zucchini (2016)

My Life as a Zucchini (released in France and Switzerland under the title Ma vie de courgette) arrived in 2016 as a co-production between Gébéka Films, Rita Productions, and Blue Spirit, representing something of a quiet landmark in European stop-motion animation. Based on the 2002 novel Autobiographie d'une courgette by Gilles Paris, the film runs a trim 66 minutes, which in an era of bloated blockbusters feels almost radical. It was Switzerland's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film that year and picked up a César Award for Best Animated Film, among other recognitions across the festival circuit. That kind of sustained critical warmth is not something that happens by accident.

The director is Claude Barras, a Swiss filmmaker who had worked steadily in short-form animation before this, his debut feature. Stop-motion is a labour-intensive craft at the best of times, and Barras and his team built a world that is visually distinctive: rounded, slightly ungainly puppet figures with those now-famous large eyes, inhabiting carefully textured sets that manage to feel both stylised and lived-in. The film's French-language screenplay was written by Céline Sciamma, herself a significant figure in French cinema. The voice cast, performing in the original French, includes Gaspard Schlatter as the boy known as Courgette (or Zucchini in the English-language version), alongside Sixtine Murat, Paulin Jaccoud, and Michel Vuillermoz as the sympathetic police officer Raymond. The performances across the board are naturalistic in a way that is harder to achieve with young voice talent than it might appear. If you want a sense of how French cinema handles childhood and adolescence with honesty and without sentimentality, it is worth looking at Mustang (2015), another French production that takes young people and their interior lives seriously. For a different register of what animation can do when it is given serious dramatic purpose, Josep (2020) is another strong point of comparison, and No Dogs or Italians Allowed (2022) shows how the form can carry personal and emotional weight just as effectively as live action.

The film's subject matter, a child navigating a foster home after losing a parent, could easily tip into either miserabilism or saccharine reassurance. That it does neither is largely a function of tone, one that Barras and Sciamma worked hard to calibrate. The children in the group home are not presented as victims to be pitied but as people with distinct personalities, humour, and small dignities. It is the kind of animated film that tends to sit awkwardly in marketing categories, too gentle and genuinely affecting for cynical adult audiences who have written off the form, and too honest about difficult subjects for parents expecting something comfortably unchallenging. That awkwardness, in this case, is very much a compliment. For the sake of context on where this sits alongside other animation the blog has covered, Trolls (2016) arrived in the same year and represents a rather different end of the animated spectrum.

My Life as a Courgette (2016) (known in French as *Ma vie de courgette) is a small miracle of stop-motion animation and emotional storytelling. At just 66 minutes, it packs a quiet but profound punch, using its deceptively simple claymation style to explore themes of grief, abandonment, foster care, and the fragile beginnings of trust. The story follows a young boy nicknamed Courgette (or Zucchini in the English dub), who, after a tragic loss, is sent to a group home where he meets other children each carrying their own invisible wounds. What’s immediately striking is the film’s artistic tenderness. The characters’ oversized eyes and delicate features convey volumes without dialogue, and the muted color palette (soft blues, warm browns, gentle greys) mirrors the film’s balance between melancholy and hope. Despite its heavy subject matter, it never feels exploitative or overwhelming. Instead, it treats childhood trauma with honesty, compassion, and even moments of genuine humor, like the kids’ blunt yet innocent conversations about sex, alcohol, or why their parents left them. It’s also remarkably effective as an entry point for young viewers (and adults alike) to discuss difficult realities (loss, neglect, resilience) in a way that’s accessible without being sugarcoated. The relationships that form among the children feel authentic, and the glimmers of joy they find together are all the more moving because of what they’ve endured. A beautifully crafted, emotionally intelligent gem. Short, sweet, and surprisingly deep, My Life as a Courgette proves that animation can be both gentle and unflinching. It doesn’t shout; it whispers and in doing so, says more than most films twice its length.

For me, what lingers most after the credits roll is precisely that quality of restraint. So much animation, particularly the kind with serious awards ambitions, feels the need to announce its own importance. This one simply gets on with it, trusting the audience to meet it halfway. It is the sort of film I find myself recommending to people who claim they do not watch animation, because the argument it makes for the form is made entirely by example. Sixty-six minutes well spent, and then some.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 2016  | Watched: 2026-02-25

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for My Life as a Zucchini (2016) on YouTube

Where to watch

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