Adam Elliot
Credit: MATT IRWIN
World
Oscar Winner Adam Elliot ‘Strives for Imperfection’ as Sarah Snook-Voiced ‘Memoir of a Snail’ Debuts Teaser (EXCLUSIVE)
“Memoir of a Snail,” directed by Oscar winner Adam Elliot – and voiced by “Succession” star Sarah Snook – has debuted a teaser ahead of its premiere at Annecy.
Australian theatrical release, via Madman, is set for Oct. 17.
In the film, little Grace Puddle is separated from her twin brother Gilbert following their parents’ deaths. Things only get worse from there, she later admits to a garden snail named Sylvia – the only creature interested in her tragic story.
“I gravitate towards the underdog. People who are perceived as different, marginalized. I am not interested in heroes. It’s probably because I am ultimately making films about myself. I really empathize and identify with my characters,” the director told Variety.
“The truth is, they are all based on real people: they just happen to be my family and friends. In [previous film] ‘Mary and Max,’ Max was based on my pen pal, who is still alive. ‘Memoir of a Snail’ has a lot of my mother. We call her a ‘reformed hoarder,’ but she still collects.”
Despite his characters’ “imperfections” and numerous hardships they go through, Elliot – who won Academy Award for 2003 short “Harvie Krumpet” – continues to root for them.
“Someone said to me recently: ‘You really drag your characters through the mud.’ But they’ve had so much bad luck that by the end of each film, when they finally triumph, you are on their side,” he pointed out.
Grace, hiding behind objects cluttering her house, keeps experiencing loss, rejection, sadness and solitude. And yet “Memoir of a Snail” is full of warmth.
“I’ve always loved that quote that without darkness, light has no meaning. There is a bit of this Australian, self-deprecating humor in there as well. I want the audience to laugh, but if I can get them to shed a tear, I really feel like I’ve achieved something. My father was an acrobatic clown and he used to say: ‘Adam, you are not an ‘auteur,’ you are an entertainer. Make them laugh and make them cry’.”
Despite his affection for Ken Loach or Mike Leigh, Elliot is sticking to stop-motion.
“I get asked why I don’t make live-action and it’s really simple: in stop-motion, you have creative control and you can push the boundaries of the art form. You can have a dark moment and a light moment almost simultaneously. In ‘Cousin’ [made in 1998] you find out our character’s parents were killed in a car accident while he is wearing a T-shirt that says: ‘I yodel for Jesus.’ Also, I just can’t help myself: I love peculiar deaths.”
Or older mentors. In the film, Grace finally finds a friend other than her beloved snails: it’s an eccentric lady called Pinky, who encourages her to come out of her shell.
“There is wisdom that can come with age. Now, there is a bigger gap between generations, so what could bring us together? Simple pleasures. Pinky teaches Grace how to be brave, because yes, she is like one of these snails. She’s constantly recoiling from all this trauma.”
“Originally, it was supposed to be a ‘Memoir of a Ladybird,’ but it felt a little bit twee. I love drawing snails and I collected them as a child. When I write my screenplays, I don’t think about all the practicalities. After the 10th draft or so, I went: ‘Oh gee, now I will have to make thousands of these things.’ I never want to see another snail ever again!”
He will continue making films he believes in, however.
“I’ve had offers [from bigger studios] and financially, I should have said yes. But I am a megalomaniac: I prefer to write and direct my own films, and I have my niche. Still, with my next project, I want to be even more ambitious. All my budgets are very low, so there’s always compromise – in ‘Memoir,’ there is very little walking. Or talking, which is why I use voiceover.”
Once again, his film is narrated by a starry cast, from Sarah Snook to Jacki Weaver, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Eric Bana. Previously, he has collaborated with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Geoffrey Rush or Toni Collette.
“Everyone says: ‘Adam, why do you always go for these Academy Award-winning actors?’ Because they are good! Sarah, in many ways, directed me. I am not necessarily striving to have globally recognizable names – I am striving for authenticity. I told Sarah: ‘I just want you to be yourself.’ The investors love stars, but I don’t mention them at the beginning of my films, for example. I don’t want the audience to think about the actors until the end credits.”
Instead, he wants them to look into his characters’ eyes. Literally.
“Even though these are blobs of clay, they break the fourth wall and look straight at you. They are asymmetrical and deformed-looking, but they also have this endearing quality.”
Born with a physiological tremor, Elliot has incorporated it into his work.
“When I draw, my lines are wobbly, so my 3D characters are versions of my 2D drawings. A lot of stop-motion has become very slick, but my characters’ psyches are fractured. I always tell my collaborators: ‘Put in the fingerprint, put in the lump. Pretend you’ve had a glass of wine and you are a little bit tipsy.’ It’s all about striving for imperfection.”
An Arenamedia production, “Memoir of a Snail” was produced by Elliot and Liz Kearney, and executive produced by Robert Connolly and Robert Patterson. Anton & Charades handle international sales; the film is distributed by IFC for North America and Wild Bunch for France.
World
Minnesota braces for what’s next amid immigration arrests and in the wake of Renee Good shooting
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration officer, Minnesota’s Twin Cities on Sunday braced for what many expect will be a new normal over the next few weeks as the Department of Homeland Security carries out what it called its largest enforcement operation ever.
Protesters screamed at heavily-armed federal agents and honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt their operations in one Minneapolis neighborhood filled with single-family homes.
There was some pushing and several people were hit with chemical spray just before agents banged down the door of one home on Sunday. They later took one man away in handcuffs.
“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”
Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.
People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners in the neighborhood where 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed Wednesday, watching for any signs of federal agents.
More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .
“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.
The protests have been largely peaceful, but the Twin Cities remained anxious. Minneapolis public schools on Monday will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.
Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.
While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said on Sunday that the investigation into Good’s shooting death shouldn’t be overseen solely by the federal government.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.
“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened,” Smith said on ABC’s “This Week.”
The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.
Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”
“That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.
Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn’t be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”
The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests across the country over the weekend.
Thousands of people marched Saturday in Minneapolis, where Homeland Security called its deployment of immigration officers in the Twin Cities its biggest ever immigration enforcement operation.
___
Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis, Thomas Strong in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
World
Netanyahu and Rubio discuss US military intervention in Iran amid ongoing nationwide protests: report
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of U.S. intervention in Iran, according to a report.
The two leaders spoke by phone Saturday as Israel is on “high alert,” preparing for the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Iran, according to Reuters, citing multiple Israeli sources. A U.S. official confirmed the call to Fox News Digital but did not provide additional details.
The report comes as nationwide anti-regime demonstrations across Iran hit the two-week mark.
On Saturday, the Iranian regime triggered an internet “kill switch” in an apparent effort to conceal alleged abuses by security forces and as protests against it surged nationwide, according to a cybersecurity expert. The blackout reduced internet access to a fraction of normal levels.
KEANE WARNS IRANIAN REGIME TO TAKE TRUMP ‘DEAD SERIOUS’ ON PROTEST KILLING THREAT AMID ONGOING DEMONSTRATIONS
Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds his end-of-year press conference at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. (Kevin Mohatt/Reuters)
On Sunday, Iran’s parliament speaker warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America strikes the Islamic Republic.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf issued the threat as lawmakers rushed the dais in the Iranian parliament, shouting, “Death to America!” according to The Associated Press.
President Donald Trump offered support for the protesters on Saturday, writing on Truth Social that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
IRANIAN MILITARY LEADER THREATENS PREEMPTIVE ATTACK AFTER TRUMP COMMENTS
In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
At a news conference Friday, Trump said Iran was facing mounting pressure as unrest spreads across the country.
“Iran’s in big trouble,” he said. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago. We’re watching the situation very carefully.”
The president said the U.S. would respond forcefully if the regime resorts to mass violence.
“We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts,” he said.
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Protests in Iran intensify for the 12th day. (The National Council of Resistance of Iran)
Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department and White House for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Bussey, Brie Stimson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
World
Four killed, 20 injured in overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine
Published on
Russia fired more than 150 drones overnight into Sunday targeting close to two dozen locations across Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring 20 more.
Ukraine’s Air Forces say they intercepted 125 drones aerially but confirmed that at least 25 strike drones struck their targets.
They added that Moscow’s latest barrage mainly targeted Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, all of which were targeted in Saturday’s overnight strikes as well.
Local officials in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia say the strikes targeted residential areas and energy infrastructure. More than 385,000 homes were affected by electric, gas or water outages, at a critical time as temperatures plunged to 10 degrees below Celsius.
Regional lawmakers say service was restored to most of the affected households and areas by Sunday morning, but added that emergency work was still being carried out to restore power to the remaining homes.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of timing their attacks with the cold peaks of winter as to maximise civilian suffering.
“They struck targets that have no military purpose whatsoever – energy infrastructure, residential buildings. They deliberately waited for freezing weather to make things worse for our people. This is deliberate, cynical Russian terror specifically against civilians,” wrote Zelenskyy in a post on X.
He also noted that this week had seen heightened Russian assault on Ukrainian cities, announcing that his country’s defence forces recorded thousands of attacks using a variety of different weapons.
“Over the course of this week, Russia launched almost 1,100 attack drones against Ukraine, more than 890 guided aerial bombs, and over 50 missiles of various types – ballistic, cruise, and even the Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile.”
The Ukrainian leader thanked all units responsible for protecting the country and responding to attacks, and praised their tireless efforts and resilience.
He also called on allies to ensure his embattled country maintains “stable support”, in defence and diplomatic fields as coordinated dialogue efforts continue in search of peace.
Meanwhile, Russia says that one person was killed in Ukrainian strikes on the western city of Voronezh. Officials say a young woman succumbed to her wounds at an intensive care unit of a local hospital after debris from a drone fell on her house during Saturday’s attacks.
They added that at least three others were injured in the attacks which targeted more than 10 residential apartment buildings, private homes and a high school.
The city of Voronezh lies just 250 kilometres from the Ukrainian border and is home to approximately one million people. The attacks, which Kyiv have yet to confirm, came after the Kremlin’s major offensive on Ukraine in the early hours of Saturday.
Additional sources • AP
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