This one lowers your heart rate. Thirty-odd minutes of handmade puppet animation where the biggest event is a kid turning her grandmother's house into a whole world, and it still leaves a mark. Cherry, the stuffed friend who talks only to Chieri, is the tell: you know exactly what he is, you know exactly what he's for, and the film never once mocks her for needing him. Watch how the new kids at grandma's place slowly crowd into the space Cherry used to fill, and how the movie refuses to call that a tragedy or a triumph. It's a film about the summer you stopped narrating your life to somebody invisible. If you had a Cherry, you'll feel the exact moment he starts getting quieter, and you'll hate how gently it's handled.

Chieri is a sixth grader whose father died when she was little, leaving her to live with just her mother. Her only friend is Cherry, a stuffed toy she found during her father's funeral, who in her imagination talks with her, plays with her, gives her advice and looks after her. When Chieri returns to her grandmother's house for a ceremony remembering her father, she meets a new group of friends and discovers a stray dog about to give birth, just as a crow and a strange monster come after the puppies. The fantasy film follows Chieri and Cherry on a journey along the line between imagination and reality.