Like any little girl, Elizabeth "Neko" Pilarcik watched Disney cartoons. Until one day she found herself frustrated, because it seemed like every girl in those films was a wimpy, princess-type who always needed rescuing.

She knew she wasn't that way, and neither were most of the girls she knew.

"I figured maybe the guys at Disney just didn't know what real little girls were like, so I started drawing my own shows," Pilarcik wrote in an e-mail from France.

That's right. Pilarcik was in France, where her animated short, "The Three Artists," previewed at the Cannes Film Festival.

The little girl growing up in Schererville who tired of Disney princesses has come a long way.

The Columbia College student became interested in anime (Japanese animation) shortly after she began drawing. One of her inspirations was "Arcadia of Youth" by Leiji Matsumoto ("It's still my favorite movie," she says).

Pilarcik was taken with the fact that the women in his stories were unapologetically strong, capable and classy.

"After that, anime became my style of choice," she said.

"It's still my dream to go to Japan and work for Mr. Matsumoto."

Hence her new moniker: "Neko" translates better in Japan, where it means "cat."

Pilarcik was raised by her grandparents until she was 11 or 12 -- years she calls some of the best times of her life.

"They've always been supportive of me, my career choice, and my love of strange Japanese cartoons," she said.

"Ah-ma (her grandmother) is an artist herself. I always used to watch her work, and she'd even let me help, so that definitely showed me that art was something I could do."

Art made Pilarcik think of "art" as a skill to be learned and improved on, not some magical talent you either have or don't.

"That mentality helped me all throughout my college career," she said.

Pilarcik endured a tough selection process to be chosen among Columbia College students to attend Cannes. The film that got her there was done as part of the Animation Production Studio class (taught by Ron Fleischer).

"The Three Artists" team consisted of 15 students including Pilarcik as director and one of the lead animators. She averaged 70 hours a week on the project (in addition to her three other classes).

"But I loved the project and being director, so I'd do it again in a heartbeat," she said.

The tale of "The Three Artists" is the following: Michelangelo, Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol are hired as house painters; however, their definition of "paint" and the owner's are distinctly different.

"It's high art meets slapstick in a 'Three Stooges' sort of way," Pilarcik said.

In addition to their film's selection at the renowned festival, Pilarcik and her classmates were creating a minidocumentary of the trip to Cannes.

"I really feel like some of the most beneficial contacts I'm making here are with the other Columbia students," she said.

"It's kind of funny; we all go to the same college, to the same building of said college, most of live within eight blocks of each other, and yet it took us going to France for us to meet."