‘Endless Cookie’ (2025)
In my side hustle as a social justice film programmer, I’ve learned a lot about how other traditions tell stories. For some Indigenous filmmakers, the concept isn’t so much beginning, middle and end, but the ever-undulating cycles of life, family history and lore – with some culminations, but also always new beginnings. I can’t think of a better crystallization than this uplifting animated documentary by Seth Scriver and half-brother Pete revolving around taped conversations between the two detailing Pete’s struggles with schizophrenia. Seth is white, Pete is biracial (white and Indigenous), fluent in Cree and lives on the Shamattawa First Nation reserve in Manitoba. “Endless Cookie” is something of a mind-blower, gonzo and a bit meta. Among its digressions and side stories is a thread of Seth forever chasing funds to finish his film; indeed, it took more than eight years to make. But the matters at the core are isolation, addiction, colonialism and the harmful impacts on generations of Indigenous people, done in vivid, hand-drawn animation by Seth that makes Adult Swim look tame; the characters are all some freaky cool combination of human, dog and veggies, conceptual neighbors to SpongeBob or the Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The title comes from that cyclical notion of life, but there is a character in the film called Cookie, who, as you might guess, is a sugary confection with legs and plenty of attitude. It’s a kind of anti-Pixar (no offense) adult animated film reminiscent of last year’s Oscar-nominated “Robot Dreams,” and this past weekend “Cookie” won Best Animated Film from the Boston Society of Film Critics.
For What it's Worth 