The award-winning animated short uses live-action and hand-drawn animation to tackle the complex story of a Holocaust survivor who addresses a classroom full of students and one young schoolgirl’s reaction; streams on YouTube for 2-days only – beginning January 4.
Tal Kantor’s award-winning animated short Letter to a Pig will stream on YouTube (watch it below) for two days, beginning tomorrow, January 4, at 10:00 am EST. The film won AIF’s Grand Prize - Shorts Award and also received honors at the 2022 Jerusalem International Film Festival in Israel. Part of the Academy’s shortlist process, the two-day viewing window provides Academy members and the public a chance to view films, with voting members selecting nominees to continue to compete in the 2024 Academy Awards. Winners will be announced Sunday, March 10, at the 96th Academy Awards ceremony.
Letter to a Pig, directed by Kantor and produced by Miyu Productions along with The Hive Studio, brings to life the memories of a Holocaust survivor as he addresses a classroom full of students. When he begins to read a letter he wrote to the pig who saved his life, a young schoolgirl sinks into a twisted dream as she listens to the survivor’s testimony and finds herself confronting questions of identity, collective trauma, and the extremes of human nature.
The film is primarily black and white, with live-action characters deeply layered in 2D linework and shading. As memories intensify, details of eyes and skin wrinkles reveal themselves out of the white backgrounds but then fade again as a character’s interest fades. Their focus becomes more narrowed as if they feel themselves shrinking into the background.
Watch and enjoy:
Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.
