PRECIOUS BUNDLE
DIRECTED BY ANGELICA HEAD
UNITED KINGDOM // 2020
13 MINS
A daughter tries to mend her fractured relationship with her father but his attitudes create more complications than she had expected. An intriguing mix of stop-motion animation and interviews reveal a family’s mythology and complex family dynamics.
UK Student Award Jury comments:
Competition amongst the film's in the UK student award this year was truly fierce. We certainly had a very tough deliberation on our hands. But the award this year goes to a thought-provoking documentary that deals with difficult subjects and creates conversation. This is an incredibly personal and profound story, which takes the audience on a real journey with the filmmaker.
That’s uncomfortable in parts, yet revealing and emotional in equal measure. The unfolding narrative looks at complex family dynamics and tackles some sensitive issues head-on. The storytelling style is individual and innovates with form, beautifully integrating stop motion in a truly creative way. It really stayed with us a long time after viewing.
The UK student Award goes to Precious Bundle by Kim Angelica Head.
Reflective Encounters
“Kim Angelica Head’s Precious Bundle follows in the footsteps of documentaries by Kirsten Johnson (Dick Johnson is Dead, 2020) as a personal interrogation of her relationship with her father. Her film opens questions pertaining to unconditional love and parenting, especially in relation to her father’s views on racism, which she describes as being a punch in the chest.
The film beautifully combines stop-motion animation with live-action, visualising the tension Kim feels with her father through powerful metaphors. It’s a film which forces us to reflect on our own relationships, both those we choose and those we are born into, and the freedom of choice we actually have in connecting to family members. Kim seamlessly manoeuvres between memories of the past and the present, including a striking interview with her father.
Kim uses the story of her mother’s tatty Scrabble dictionary to define the titular term of endearment, Precious Bundle, she enjoyed as a child. She’s self-aware of the rose-tinted vision this gives her of herself as a young child, especially in the wake of her father’s nervous breakdown. It’s a powerful film which prompts us to reflect on the allowances and sacrifices we should make for the people we love.”
— Lillian Crawford
Director’s Statement
The positive reaction to Precious Bundle has been overwhelming. It is wonderful to think that people are connecting with something so personal to me. I loved using non-linear stop motion to hint at the idea that the end of the film was a foregone conclusion.
Filmmaker Bio
Kim Angelica Head is a filmmaker from Brighton, England. Precious Bundle was her final piece on her Masters course at the University Of Edinburgh, which she recently graduated from with a Distinction in Film Directing.
She is currently working independently on another documentary and she is also brewing a stop motion horror film.