The Maltese animator’s debut short, Misophonia, combines risograph printing and an uncomfortable soundscape to draw us into a very different world.
For most of us, sounds like people slurping, chewing or sniffing can be a little irritating. But there’s a world between that experience and suffering from misophonia: an aural disorder where specific sounds can trigger intense emotional and physical reactions.
Malta-based animator and printmaker Michelle Gruppetta wanted to explore what that’s like to experience first-hand. And that’s exactly the topic she explores in Misophonia, her debut short.
“Misophonia is a neurobehavioral condition associated with an intolerance, hatred or even disgust of specific sounds,” she explains. “Noises such as other people chewing, breathing or sniffling, to name a few, induce discomfort and even rage in the person with the condition.
“People with misophonia are affected emotionally by the everyday sounds of other people that most typically don’t notice,” she continues. “The aforementioned examples trigger a fight-or-flight response that often results in anger or the need to escape.”
But rather than just explaining what the condition is, the short sets out to make you feel it, by combining an unsettling soundscape of trigger noises with risograph-printed animation.
To get it right, she worked directly with people who have misophonia, running focus groups and taking on their feedback. Her aim, she says, is to “highlight that even the most innocuous sounds can have an effect on people, more than we might ever realise. By addressing this topic, this project contributes to a broader discussion on noise pollution in our everyday contemporary lives.”
A soundtrack to make you squirm
Misophonia was released in 2025 and has since run on the festival circuit, with screenings this year at Pictoplasma and the Annecy International Animation Festival. Importantly, it doesn’t follow a traditional three-act structure. Instead, the intense soundscape takes the viewer on a journey through what it’s like to live with the condition.
The visuals are as confrontational as the audio. Close-ups of mouths slurping spaghetti, spoons multiplying as they approach lips, a tipped-over mug and a half-eaten biscuit, a man yelling into his fist: all is rendered in a restricted palette of orange, teal and black, with all the grainy textures and slight misregistration you expect from riso printing.
The subject is a personal one for Michelle. Eight years ago, she relocated from Malta to Denmark to study character animation at The Animation Workshop. “I moved from one of the noisiest, most densely populated countries in Europe to one of the quietest,” she explains. “And suddenly, just like that, I had unintentionally removed myself from a hidden daily pressure that I hadn’t even realised was secretly overwhelming me.” Towards the end of her time there, she was diagnosed with ADHD, which, she explains, “made complete sense of my general sensitivity to flavours, textures and, of course, sounds”.
Since graduating in 2021, Gruppetta has worked as a freelancer in the world of animation, most recently with Blue Zoo, mainly as a 3D layout and previz artist on shows including LEGO City: No Limits. But while she considers herself lucky, she notes that: “This type of work doesn’t encourage much creative input or decisions from a freelancer like myself, so I’ve heavily pursued trying to realise my own personal creative projects on the side, which is how Misophonia came to be.”
Visual inspiration
As you’ve probably guessed, she has a passion for printmaking, and runs her own riso printing studio in Malta, Purċinella Press. In 2023 and 2024, she founded and organised PrintFest CPH, a one-day market in Copenhagen celebrating printmakers, zine makers and small press publishers. Since returning home, she’s run a similar event, Marka+Stampa, during Malta’s National Book Festival.
Her love of print was originally sparked by a visit to the MC Escher Museum in The Hague when she was around 19. “His work continues to remain a huge inspiration for me,” she says. “I’m also inspired by other printmakers and animators such as Will Mower, Yana Yun Lin of riso.yyl, DTAN Studio, Zinehug and Ellis Tolsma, whom I met at Pictoplasma this year.”
Next up, Gruppetta’s work will feature in Urban Wildlife, a group exhibition at the Malta Society of Arts this autumn. “I feel that my own personal style is only now beginning to somewhat take shape,” she says, “with a heavy emphasis on texture, graphical shapes and eye-searing colours. On the basis of Misophonia, we’re looking forward to seeing it continue to develop.
