Courtesy of the filmmakers

Marjut Rimminen and Christine Roche wove this dark story out of a small enigmatic newspaper cutting. The narrative fills in an imagined back-story of incest, family violence and secrets, using a well-designed mixture of drawing and model animation.

The Stain (1991) imbues a small-scale domestic narrative with tempestuous psychological forces. This sort of exposure of the dark underbelly of family life is a potent and distinctive feature of women's animation, which developed in contrast to British animation's prevailing culture of gags and action and its focus on technical innovation, and has influenced and enriched the medium as a whole.

Christine Roche has had a career in education and illustration. Marjut Rimminen has gone on to develop as a film-maker. Her film Many Happy Returns (1997) takes the psycho-biographical family exposé further, making effective use of digitally-processed live-action and model animation.

Ruth Lingford

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