The Missing Picture (2006)

A story about television, and a wonder about who tells us the stories we are told.

Chica lives with her grandfather. Though he is blind, he tells stories, and his words conjure up such amazing pictures that you can see them clearly just by closing your eyes. But he’s starting to have holes in his - like, what did he do yesterday afternoon, where is the crust of bread that was on his plate a minute ago, and have we had tea yet. One day, in the middle of a story, the picture in his memory goes missing and the story comes to a halt. Chica goes out in search of it.

Outside, she finds that parts of her world have disappeared (like the gaps in her grandfather’s memory) and are being replaced by parts of a completely different world, right there in front of her. She jumps in, looking for the missing pieces of her own reality. In the other world, Chica’s sudden appearance becomes a TV news event, and we begin to discover where the missing pieces have been going. We come to wonder - has Chica’s and her grandfather’s own story been just a television show all along?

Which story is real, and how can we know?