In her animated film Dandelion's Odyssey, Japanese director Momoko Seto explores the theme of migration – something seen across the natural world, as well as among human beings. Using detailed scientific imagery and a multi-layered soundtrack in place of dialogue, the film’s message is one of resilience.
Planet Earth is burning, with explosions going off left and right. In the midst of this chaos, four dandelion plants, fearing for their survival, lift off and float away into space to find a new home.
With this animated tale, Seto explores challenges seen in both the natural world and the human race: migration and the effects of climate change. Using the familiar image of dandelion seeds dispersed by the wind, she examines the fragility and resilience of both people and the world around them.
Trained at art school in France, Seto has previously made documentary films with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), which led her to thinking about how to share scientific content with a wider audience.
Seto began with making short films in a series called Planet, which became a template for the full length feature.
The music and sound production, by Nicolas Becker and Quentin Sirjacq, also play a significant role in Dandelion's Odyssey, which has no dialogue, allowing it to transcend barriers of age and language.
Seto credits Japanese culture with influencing her work in this regard, explaining that the "absence of words" is in itself a vital part of communication and that "silence is important between two people", to allow for sounds, body language and movement to also play their part.
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Dandelion’s Odyssey was shot in France, Iceland and Japan over several months, with different teams and using various techniques, in a combination of 3D animation, live action and time-lapse footage.
The film zooms in on a miniature world that takes on giant proportions, one where a bee becomes as big as a helicopter and a praying mantis becomes a dinosaur stalking the earth, while a mushroom is seen as a towering tree.
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For Seto, the process of migration, be it by humans, plants or animals, is an integral part of life – a natural phenomenon, to be embraced and accepted.
“We shouldn’t be barring people from entering to protect our territory, …saying you are a foreigner. No, we are all foreigners”
Shown as the closing film at the Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival in 2025, Dandelion’s Odyssey went on to win the Fipresci International Film Critics Award, as well as taking prizes at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and the Bucheon International Animation Festival in South Korea.
It was released in French cinemas on 11 March.
