Awards Season Shorts Sampler

Last night, I was fortunate enough to attend a showcase of some of the year's animated shorts that are in the thick of the awards season whirlwind. This was part of the World Animation Summit, where professionals across the animation industry gather to talk about their work, make new connections, and celebrate yet another fantastic year of animation.

The theater at the Garland Hotel in Studio City was packed, and the audience was warm and receptive to a fantastic program of varied shorts. Here's a rundown of my thoughts on what we saw.

The program opened with Jean-Philippe Vine's utterly charming Cardboard, about an exasperated pig who's moving his rambunctious twins into a new home: a trailer that is much more run-down than the picture on the brochure. As the dad sets to the grueling work of unpacking (and having to do so without his wife, who has presumably recently passed away), the twins plunge into a world of imagination thanks to some of the discarded cardboard boxes lying around.

Cardboard

It's a common joke that kids at Christmas are often more thrilled by the box the toys come in than the toys himself, and that joke is wrung for everything it's worth here. Cardboard is a case where it sort of only has one joke, but it's done so well, in so many ways, and with such perfect escalation, that it remains funny every time it's told. Basically, we're jumping back and forth between the twins' imagination (a space adventure, naturally) and what they're actually doing. Just like, bonking each other on the head, or tumbling down the stairs. They are so cute, and the film is warm and sweet and yeah, just really funny. This is one of those shorts you can put on for anyone, and you're guaranteed to get some laughs.

Next up was one of my most anticipated, Éiru, a short hailing from Cartoon Saloon and filmmaker Giovanna Ferrari, who talked about the film stemming from the war in Ukraine, and a wish that people from different backgrounds and cultures could find commonality, community, and peace. The short has been playing in theaters alongside Little Amélie, but as I saw that one via screener, this was my first time seeing the short.

Éiru

And while I liked it, it felt a little simple, even for a short. The film follows the eponymous warrior-to-be, a tiny girl who's eager but so clumsy. She's part of the red clan, who are regularly at-war with the blue and green clans. Each have their own little theme (blue is water, green is trees, red - I think - is fire). When the water well suddenly runs dry, Éiru is the only one at camp small enough to go down to see what's going on.

While the story and theme are pretty straight-on and feel maybe too-familiar, this still does have some of what I crave from a Cartoon Saloon production. Even with its brief runtime, there's still such a strong sense of place, and particularly a mythological weight to the proceedings which is really appealing. And it's a beautiful short, with some beautifully rough elements, lines that feel like they would usually be erased, but are allowed to linger to let us feel the care that was put into the animation. Lovely stuff.

The third short was Snow Bear, which I've written about before. It was lovely to see again, and this time on the big screen, and the director, Aaron Blaise, was one of the filmmakers on-hand for the Q&A. He talked about the film being inspired by losing his wife to breast cancer twenty years ago, and the ways people try to fill a hole in their life like that, and the way you eventually find your footing again. Blaise teaches animation, and was interested in teaching students how to make an animated short, which led to him tackling this project in his free time over a period of years. 

Snow Bear

Next up was Matteo Burani's Playing God, the highlight of the night for me. It depicts a workshop full of monstrous-looking creatures, vaguely human, who watch as a towering creator (an actual human) molds his next creation. It depicts the act of creation as a grotesque one, painful and brutal and endlessly iterative (fitting for an animated short -- few kinds of film are likely harder to make). The film was animated by one animator, Arianna Gheller, and was completed over the course of seven years.

Playing God

The work shows. This film is completely astonishing to behold. The way the clay stretches and snaps and bends, the way the body is molded and broken and deformed, it's all just incredible. Everything you see was captured in-camera, including the footage that involves the human creator (played by Burani), who had an armature attached to him to help keep him from moving during the animation process. You can feel the pain, and the care, in every frame of this (frankly) horrific short. It's one of the most impressive pieces of animation I've seen in a long time.

DreamWorks was up next with their buzzy short, Justin and Chris Copeland's Wednesdays with Gramps, about a kid who dreads having the spend an hour with his grandpa at the elderly care facility. After the hour is up, he bolts, only to find his grandpa on the same bus as him, leading to a surprising discovery.

Wednesdays with Gramps

Weirdly, as DreamWorks has been pushing this short online recently, there's been a vocal backlash about the film's aesthetic, and how all animated movies seem to be chasing that Spider-verse look. To which I say, that means all these movies look awesome. Plus, I feel like most movies that take obvious inspiration from Spidey are doing a good job of finding their own groove within that larger style, as is the case here. Great-looking short.

And the story-telling is so on-point. I love when a short manages to take you on a journey, and this one does. It has multiple fun twists, some great reveals, and so much character-building. It also had me in my feelings about growing old, which I've often been on the record about. I dread growing old, fear it even, because it seems like it's act of disappearing. Younger people don't always see elderly people as people. And that feels like the starting point of this short. It's about this kid finally seeing his grandpa as a human being, with a rich inner life, thoughts, interests, feelings. Someone worth connecting to. It's a great message, and also a gentle reminder that getting older isn't something we have to dread.

Malcon Pierce was on hand to talk about his new short, Versa, and he likened the making of a short film within a studio to trying to steer a rowboat in a sea full of cruise ships (features). You have to find the cracks, the breaks through which you can navigate to get the thing done.

Versa

Versa comes from a personal place for Pierce, who experienced the loss of a child a few years ago. He and his wife navigated the grief process differently, as every person who experiences grief does, and that's creatively depicted in the short, which is a sort of cosmic ballet featuring two deities experiencing a similar loss. The film used a choreographer and ice skaters to help build out the movements of the characters, and that attention to detail shows. Each of the characters goes through the grieving process in their own way, at their own pace, but they find each other again through it, and are able to continue on with their scars showing (in a very kintsugi-style way).

While I appreciate the film's personal nature, and its beautiful animation, Versa unfortunately didn't resonate for me personally. Maybe it's because of the characters' divine nature, or that the film made me think of more impactful and somewhat similar shorts like Duet or Us Again, but I just never made it on to the film's emotional wavelength. Which is a bummer, because I love to cry!

Next up was Forevergreen, from co-directors Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears, which follows a cute little bear who is essentially adopted by a tree, who provides shelter, food, and guidance for its ursine ward. This is one of the year's best-looking shorts, using CG to create a world that looks tactile and hand-made, like everything is carved out of wood, or cardboard. The character designs -- especially the bear -- are adorable, and just ooze personality. 

Forevergreen

The story is pretty straightforward, a sort of parent-child dynamic, or you can read it as more of a friendship that somewhat sours as it runs its course. There's an environmental undercurrent, too, though not as pronounced as in something like Snow Bear. At the end of the short, a Bible verse pops up, which really threw me, since this didn't feel particularly Christian, though the director who participated in the Q&A made it clear that they were hoping this short would impart Christian values while being universally accessible. Which, sure, I guess it ticks those boxes.

Notably, Forevergreen was made by over 200 volunteer animators, most of whom took on one or two shots, and did it as a labor of love. A theme of the Q&A is how excited animators are when they get to work on a short, or something outside of the mainstream studio industry, getting to flex their creativity and do something fresh. This was also true of Wednesday with Gramps, since DreamWorks doesn't often dip their toes into short films.

The final short of the night was Retirement Plan, which I've already covered, and have actually seen three times now. It remains one of my favorite shorts of the year, one that is so life-affirming and so deeply human. Director John Kelly sent a short video that was extraordinarily funny and well-edited, complete with an About Time joke and then a cut to Domhnall Gleeson imploring Kelly not to make that joke. I'm excited to see what he tackles next, as Retirement Plan is Kelly's directorial debut.

Retirement Plan

All in all, a fantastic program with a very engaging Q&A after. Can't wait to see what makes the shortlist next month, and which shorts make it all the way to the big night (and also to this year's Clays).