The Old Lady and the Pigeons
1997 animated short film directed by Sylvain Chomet
The Old Lady and the Pigeons (French: La vieille dame et les pigeons) is a 1997 animated short film written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. It tells the slightly surreal story of a starving policeman who dresses up as a pigeon and tricks an old lady into feeding him. The film was produced through the French company Les Armateurs with support from companies in Canada, Belgium and the United Kingdom. It was Chomet's debut film and won several awards including the Grand Prix at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival.
Plot
A Parisian police officer who lives in squalor observes an old lady overfeeding pigeons in a garden square. The sight haunts his thoughts as the old lady gives the pigeons delicate and refined dishes while he himself is starving. After having a nightmare in which giant anthropomorphic pigeons disembowel him, the officer tracks the old lady to her apartment, constructs a giant pigeon costume, and invites himself into the old lady's home. Despite the officer's rudeness, the old lady sees no inconvenience and feeds him copiously upon each visit, causing him to gradually gain weight. Each day, the officer passes by a concierge, and one of the old lady's portraits shows her younger self surrounded by overweight cats.
On Christmas Eve, the officer drunkenly ventures into the old lady's kitchen, where he discovers the old lady sharpening shears in preparation for a meal for the concierge, who is dressed like a cat.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Old Lady and the Pigeons” as 1997 animated short film directed by Sylvain Chomet. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1997 animated short film directed by Sylvain Chomet. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1217829. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1997.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Old Lady and the Pigeons” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.