Oscar-Nominated ‘My Year of Dicks’ Writer Pamela Ribon Sent Her Animated Short to Dick’s Sporting Goods

Depending on your definition of vulgar, My Year of Dicks might be the first film with that kind of word in its title to be nominated for an Oscar. (Up for debate are Sausage Party and Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa.) It’s a badge of honor, but Sara Gunnarsdóttir, the Icelandic filmmaker who directed the 1990 animated short about a teenage girl’s attempt to lose her virginity who does this don’t understand why it’s such a big deal.

“It’s such a strange word for me,” Gunnarsdóttir said in a recent interview with TheWrap. “I have the same feelings about the word ‘s—’ because I think it’s poop. We can say “poop”. Why can’t we say ‘s—’? “Tails” – like, why is that a bad word? There’s Dick’s Sporting Goods. I do not get it.”

At the mention of the sporting goods manufacturer, Pamela Ribon, who was adapting her own memoir for the 26-minute film and also on the phone, offered this tidbit: “I sent a link to Dick’s Sporting Goods. It’s not a lie I slipped into her DMs and said, ‘Hey. hey I have a movie for you.« I haven’t heard from her social network, there was no answer. You left me unread.”

Dick’s has some catching up to do. Since its premiere at SXSW last year (where Ribon won a Special Jury Award), the funny and poignant coming-of-age story has garnered praise and accolades at festivals, before earning an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short Film last month. You may remember that to announce Riz Ahmed couldn’t help but giggle this morning at this particular Oscar nominations film.

Originally created for FX, My Year of Dicks was created during Covid. Gunnarsdóttir, Ribon and a small group of actors and staff (including producer Jeanette Jeanenne) shot reference videos via zoom and smartphone during lockdown, which were then sent to a team of animators who lent their style to the film’s five chapters, each of which captures a different vibe or personality that 15-year-old Pam tries on for size. The widespread attention My Year of Dicks has received is new to Gunnarsdóttir, best known for her animation work in Marielle Heller’s 2015 indie Diary of a Teenage Girl and HBO’s 2019 miniseries The Case Against Adnan is Syed” and Ribon, an author whose credits include “Moana” and “Ralph Breaks the Internet”.

As we spoke, they were still giddy from the Oscar nominees’ luncheon — or “movie ball,” as Ribon calls it — they attended earlier this week. “This is already so wild and beyond what we could have dreamed of when we were sitting here two years ago,” Ribon said.

Although Gunnarsdóttir suffered from jet lag after returning to Iceland from Los Angeles and Ribon stayed up late before posting photos from the Oscars lunch on her Instagram, the pair were feisty and engaged during their morning chat with TheWrap, which from the 90’s camcorder memories of the Icelandic Phallological Museum in Reykjavik ranged.

Congratulations on your nomination. Did you send Riz Ahmed a link to the film so he can experience the magic behind his giggles?
Tape: Well he may Check it out on the Academy portal. It’s also on myyearofdicks.com. We did our best to send him thank you notes and he did well. I really wanted to send him a bouquet of eggplants somehow. It’s harder than you think.

Edible arrangements don’t have an eggplant option?
Tape: And in London I think it means something else, honestly.

Your film is based on your memoir, Pam. How did you decide to turn it into an animated short film?
tape: Yes. [She pulls a copy of “Notes to Boys (And Other Things I Shouldn’t Share in Public)” into the frame.] Well it was an invitation to do some animation with FX and what I love most about animation is that it really goes straight to your inner child and speaks to you in a way that can often be very healing. When I started to animate, you always asked yourself: Why are we animating this? We’d do it to really be a teenager going over it again, just taking you back in time — and messing around with the genres you’d be immersed in, literature and film [as a teenager]. It wasn’t even masks. You just say, “Well, that’s me now.” And animation lets you play with it and be taken seriously when it’s done the way Sara does her art.

Sara, what made you interested in becoming a director?
Gunnarsdottir: What fascinated me the most are the personal aspects. I’ve done this a few times with Phoebe Gloeckner’s work [in “Diary of a Teenage Girl”] and the diary of a girl who’s not even with us anymore, Hae Min Lee [from the Adnan Syed murder case]. Because it’s so personal, it has details and it feels so real. But then I was just so flattered that Pamela would trust me to do that with her because it was a little first for me. I’ve done so many animations under other directors in the live action space.

How did you decide to incorporate different animation styles for each chapter? We go from vampire skater to arthouse to anime to horror…
Gunnarsdottir: It really came out of the script because Pam played with the genres. And I immediately sorted artists into a genre and everyone said yes to me, which is so great. So I had my dream team. And it was so much fun going into it. I was a bit intimidated by the whole thing at first and it felt so good to go up to these artists that I already knew – most of whom I had worked together before – and say, ‘Hey, do you want to do this ? Me?”

The film is animated, but there’s archival footage of you as a teenager, Pam. I was about the same age in 1990 and people just weren’t filming every waking moment like they do now, which makes his presence in the film even more poignant. Have you always thought of this footage as something you could work into a project? Or was it a rediscovery for you?
Tape: Well, I moved a lot growing up, and even since high school I’ve moved a bit. Everything I wanted when there was this Fisher Price skater cartridge, I always wanted a camcorder. I finally got it for Christmas and filmed everything. And I still have all those tapes. I converted some of them to DVDs. That was the only evidence I had from all the people I knew and the people who made me laugh, so it wasn’t like a revelation of, “Oh, I have all of this?” [Laughs] I joke now that I’m a digital magpie, but I’m just an emotional magpie and I didn’t want to lose anything that was part of my childhood. What surprised me was how badly Sara wanted it.

It struck me how vulnerable a young woman of that age and time was. Did you feel the vulnerability of your younger self while making the film? Or had you already gone through this revisiting of the past after writing the memoir?
tape: I felt very differently. The memoirs, in such a tone that was appropriate 10 years ago, are from: [Speaking flippantly] “I had no idea!” Like: “Let’s all think about it The sucked. And I’ll never go back There again.” When we were doing this during lockdown, we were grounded. We were grounded and it was all over and you didn’t want to see that boy or that friend or go to that place because that was closing. I was really in this one again Feeling like at least having friends — you know, grounded with friends. Grounded with sisters, really, who’s like, “Let’s talk about this boy. Let’s make him look like this.” vulnerable like I haven’t been in a long time It was pretty raw while we were doing that.

Considering Sara’s previous work, particularly with Diary of a Teenage Girl and The Case Against Adnan Syed, she seems like the perfect director for your film. Is this how you felt when her name came up?
Tape: Yes. I hadn’t seen her work in The Case Against Adnan Syed, so I just thought: Wow look at that. Then the first thought I had was Gosh, I hope she can be funny. It is so beautiful. But I was thinking will this work with a tail joke? I hope so. And then she said, “What if it’s not like that So many cocks?” [Laughs]

This is coincidental but it just occurred to me because I was there a million years ago, isn’t there a…um, tail museum in Reykjavik? [The Icelandic Phallological Museum]
Tape: Yes!
Gunnarsdottir: It is abominable.
Tape: We had our international premiere party there. We went from narwhal to troll. We have seen everything. So many cocks.
Gunnarsdottir: For me, this museum is traumatic. I’m never going there again. It’s terrible. [Whispering] Oh dear God.
tape: Well, I wrote the guest book for you. So you don’t have to go back there.

Forgiveness. I didn’t want to bring up a bad memory.
Tape: I have a picture of you under a troll penis and we are as horrified as the moment warrants. I took pictures of everyone there. It’s just people [looking shocked] “Oh my…!”
Gunnarsdottir: My favorite part about this museum is that upon exiting after all the horror there is only a photo of the man who started this museum talking on a penis phone. [Laughs]
Tape: Some people collect bears, some love flip flops. He just knew what he liked. His son inherited it. How about The? “Sorry, I have to run my dad’s cock museum for the rest of my life.” [Laughs hard for several seconds]. Anyway, you said…

Maybe he can sell dad’s museum? But back to your film, can you talk about plans to adapt My Year of Dicks into a series?
Tape: That’s our plan. We’ll see who’s on board. It’s in early discussions. But yeah, the idea was always to extend that. [From] the book, that’s just one chapter. And you know, everyone has a dick for a year. [Laughs]
Gunnarsdottir: I’m starting to feel confident that hopefully we’ll be able to do this. We somehow forced an Oscar nomination, so we can do it!