Calling this animated documentary anything less than the most beautiful delineation of two immutable truths of human existence - pain and death, would be a gross underestimation. At its conclusion, it won't be wrong to expect an overwhelming deluge of emotions, but one which is cathartic in nature. Nguyen deserves further appreciation for interacting with a film type, an animated documentary, which anyway is an ignored field of filmmaking, and thus does not boast of too many reliable fixed templates to turn to for inspiration. Yet, the filmmaker manages to offer the most seamless union of animation and live action.

 The film shares the story of three characters and their encounters with death and the grief that followed in its wake. The narrative employs stunning animation to portray them. The timing, pacing, the manner in which the three parallel narratives are placed and inter-weaved with each other, allow the overarching story of the documentary to truly come into its own, be all that it can be, and more. 

As colours and visuals bleed into the screen space, invoking a surreal reality of loss and heartache, inseparable from each other, a life of distractions, intoxicants, escapism and the eventual moving on is conjured for the viewer. The moving frames and lines become the most accurate representation of the transience of memory and the uncertainty of revisiting another's experience through their narrative. In the process, Apart manages to push the boundaries of animation to present a moving, poignant and surreal interaction with its subject matter.

Apart | Short Film of the Day

Drawing inspiration from a famous children's character we all know, a boy with an exceptionally long nose, the short film delves into a metaphysical exploration of existence and being. The animation exhibits impeccable skill and the manner in which it utilises different kinds of animation - from roughly drawn sketches to the use of light and colours splashed across the screen to a swift movement of images from one frame to another - ensures that it is no less than a true visual treat. This is further coupled with an equally surreal, albeit brief, usage of a background score. In case all of this was not sufficient to end the list of embellishments working most beautifully for Nosis, there is the thought behind each visual, both disconcerting and poetic at the same time. The narrative does a marvellous job of tying it all together and presenting it to the viewer as a complete product. The story in itself is of a boy who may have learnt to make peace with his unusual nose, but he is yet to find out the power it holds within. Once he unearths this truth, and the abilities he has found himself in possession of, his existence transcends all mortal realms of understanding and experience, and thus begins a long journey of acquiring knowledge. However, at the end of it all lies a dark reality, one of a being having interacted with a reservoir of knowledge that was perhaps not intended for someone in the mortal world. When all of it has unfolded, where will the protagonist find himself located in this unfathomable scheme of things?

Nosis | Short Film of the Day

There is something to be said about the vividness of images that often embrace the walls of the human mind, but never allowed a spectator other than their own creator. However, when cinema, animation and visual space allow them a representation to be put forth for an audience, it perhaps becomes the most notable aspect of their journey. Milkoffee achieves and executes something similar, and presents the viewer with an expertly crafted animated short film. 


Conceived as an adaptation of Max Aub’s Crìmenes Ejemplares short stories, the film follows an encounter between two strangers at a diner in the middle of nowhere. The scene is set for something unusual, potentially unpleasant, right from the start, as the skilled visuals begin to roll in one after the other. They never lose their pace or beauty, and eventually lead the narrative to offer a shocking culmination of events. 

The story includes violence, eccentricities and the fragility of human life. It also includes a man's fixation with a stranger and his cup of coffee, and the disastrous consequences of it all. Amidst the colours, voiceover and the plot, it is undoubtedly the experimentation with the images, animation and the manner in which all of it is bound together that becomes the strongest, most notable aspect of the film.

Milkoffee | Short Film of the Day

The title of the film is a wonderful prelude to what is to come - the delineation of the many aspects of a person's relationship with their hair, especially if they are fond of them. On the face of it, the story is a simple one - a little girl waking up on a special day, and excited about working on a favourite hairstyle. As she flips open an iPad, a video tutorial of the coiffure she has chosen awaits her. Soon, the father is also roped in into her struggle, accentuating the absence of her mother, leading the viewer to assume estrangement or a recent death. The narrative is effortlessly weaved, striking the right emotional chords with its audience, with just about the most balanced sprinkling of humour. However, it soon unfolds to reveal a darker reality, where a person's love for their hair comes to stand for several things - perhaps a battle with terminal illness, the road to recovery and eventual hope. It also represent's a woman's understanding of her beauty, with or without a beautiful mane, while also engaging with single parenting. Add to it a much needed, non-stereotypical portrayal of cats as being indifferent, but not devoid of affection as is in the case of the Satan spawns they are made out to be... and voila! The film becomes an endearing, touching and heartwarming experience.

Hair Love | Short Film of the Day

Amidst steely, man-made contraptions of a concrete jungle, complete with abandoned objects and an environmental malady that continues to grow exponentially every day, Waste Away locates its explorations. The first handful of images, all exhibiting investment of meticulous thought, are sufficient to set a horizon of expectation in place for the viewer. The stop motion, though marked by its inherent surrealism of story and plot, draws the viewer's attention to a grotesque reality of urban progress and development. The narrative follows the experiences and struggles of a solitary figure, a woman who perhaps becomes an embodiment of the isolation that marks city life. Stumbling upon a rejected fish from a household, one that successfully portrays for the viewer an image of apathy and destructive indifference towards a dying planet, she eats its whole. This, in turn, ensures another series of the most unexpected events. Through her desire to not give in even in the face of extreme pain and physical discomfort, the protagonist further comes to offer a metaphor about the forever waging battle of the planet to still fight for the health of its choking oceans. While people may have managed to lose their sense of humanity and kindness towards each other, allowing existence to adopt a doleful tone and pace of its own, there is one final attempt by her to not relinquish just yet. This echoes perhaps a similar imagined message of the planet which still fights fiercely to sustain and harbour life within its seams, thereby allowing the film to communicate an impactful message especially relevant in contemporary times. On the whole, the story engages with several themes - those of motherhood, urban decay, environmental destruction, and succeeds at communicating its interactions with each of them in a notable manner.

Waste Away | Short Film of the Day

‘Prazinburk Ridge’ brings to life a poignant true story from the First World War, and does so with tools that completely eschew sentimentalism, a characteristic that often weighs down stories dealing with similar subjects and themes. On the contrary, it presents a sophisticated, moving narrative about the courage of Douglas Clark, a celebrated English football player who was enlisted in the national armed forces during the War. 

Intrinsic to the narrative are ideas of resilience and bravery, even in the face of mortal peril. However, what works most beautifully when it comes to the narratorial progression, ensuring each of these emotions and sentiments is allowed the attention it deserves, is the animated treatment by the one-man crew of the film. 

An Impressionistic visual style of dynamic boundaries, devoid of harsh, fixed lines, portrays the film’s reality for us. Despite the grimness of the subject, the loud riot of colors before you keeps your attention engaged throughout. The filmmaker’s intentions are painted using a 3D graphics tool, Unreal Engine, further exhibiting a true triumph for animation storytelling, while also ensuring that this particular narrative that hyper-localizes itself to a single moment during the First World War, stays with you long after you are done interacting with it.

Prazinburk Ridge | Short Film of the Day

Some of the most powerful stories are those marked by the least ostentatious tools and devices, and Hudson Geese goes ahead to become the perfect example of the same proposition. Marked by a voiceover coupled with animation, the film adopts a calm pace and tone, using extreme ease to hoodwink the viewer of what is truly to come. The plot maps a goose's migration flight, while he moves back and forth in the narrative, introducing you to his life so far - from finding himself a loving companion, to the changing landscape of the world around him, his story encompasses it all. As fields are turned into plush golf courses, and islands become over-riden with the sharp angles of a haphazardly growing urban infrastructure, coupled with the bird's inability to understand the rapidly evolving world around him, a pertinent comment is invoked on humans' relationship with nature. Director and writer Bernardo Britto's voice and the conceptualisation of the story is singularly wry, all the while carrying within it a hard-hitting comment on society. The humour inherent to the narrative is deliberately misleading to make the eventual progression of events all the more jarring. On the face of it, the film is simply the story of a goose, however, a single engagement with it is more than sufficient to reveal the expert and sophisticated manner in which an important message is conveyed without making it didactic or overbearing.

Hudson Geese | Short Film of the Day

The most notable aspect of ‘Trinity’ remains its animation. Marked by smoothness and skill, it allows the film to be a complete final result standing firmly on its feet. The narrative preoccupies itself with a single moment in time, the detonation of an atomic bomb. The visuals are gradual and organic in the world they bring to life, endeavoring to capture the moment of the explosion, and its aftermath. As the mushroom cloud rushes to the sky, the monochromatic realm of the film achieves completion. The edit remains tight and well-rounded throughout, the project brief and frugal, devoid of any actors or dialogue.

Trinity | Short Film of the Day

The film is a lovely experiment that ties a contemporary pop culture phenomenon, ASMR, with a night in twentieth century New York. As things unravel in quick succession, we are given a brief, but sufficient introduction to the life of Margaret and George Peabody. The narratorial development ensconces itself in an ASMR video where the reality is experienced from the point of view of a child who watches his dog sleep, while overhearing the conversation of the adults in the adjacent room. With a wise execution of its approach and idea, the film presents to us a balanced, cohesive whole, that is all along marked by the common thread of skilled storytelling. Despite the fixed visuals, there is not a moment of insipidity in the plot which, instead, keeps us at the edge of our seats throughout. The tone remains marked by lightheartedness and an omnipresence of humor, despite the dark developments of an explosion and fleeing from the law as the subject matter at hand. When all of this action is coupled with the calming visual of a peacefully sleeping dog, there is indeed little that can go wrong.

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