‘Black Slide’ Turns A Terrifying Waterslide Into A Powerful Metaphor For Childhood Grief

A day at a water park carries an inescapable sense of dread in Uri Lotan’s 2023 Oscar-shortlisted short Black Slide, now available on YouTube.

Set in Israel in the late 1990s, the film follows Eviah, a timid boy who sneaks into Aqua Fun with his best friend. Once inside, the pair head for the park’s most intimidating attraction, an enormous, enclosed waterslide that Eviah is desperate to avoid. But his anxiety is rooted in something far more serious than the ride waiting above him.

Lotan moves between Eviah’s day at the park and his home life, gradually revealing why the boy cannot shake the feeling that something terrible is waiting for him after he leaves the park. The slide becomes both a looming physical threat and a rehearsal for an experience for which no child can properly prepare.

The film is inspired by the death of Lotan’s mother, which occurred after he spent a day at a water park in the summer of 1999. That connection lends a tremendous sense of authenticity to Black Slide, from the period details of Eviah’s home to the nervous energy of children teasing and testing one another.

Sharp CG animation is elevated by some incredible lighting and special effects work, particularly the sequence when Eviah finally takes the plunge and heads down the pitch-black start to the ride. Eventually, rings and dots of light set in the slide create a fantasy-like experience for the boy and the viewer, one that will be immediately recognizable to anyone who has ever spent a day at a water park.

Black Slide was shortlisted for the 2023 Academy Award for best animated short and nominated at the Annie Awards. It also won best international short at Chilemonos, the animated grand prize at Indy Shorts, and the audience award for best short film at the British Animation Awards.

The film was written and directed by Lotan, whose Ringling graduation film The Ballad of Poisonberry Pete, co-directed with Adam Campbell and Elizabeth McMahill, premiered in Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival and won the 2013 Annie Award for best student film.

The short was produced by The Hive Studio and Flipbook Studio, with music by Asaf Sagiv and sound design by Daniel Eaton.