Two Statues Finally Give In To Seismic Desire in ‘Yearn’

In Yearn, director Ben Smith turns an earthquake into an unlikely erotic awakening, centuries in the making. The short is now available online after a fruitful festival run that included more than a dozen official competition selections.

The four-minute CG film follows, in a manner of speaking, two museum statues placed opposite one another in a museum exhibition, forced to pass the months and years with nothing but one another’s naked forms in their fixed eyelines. Told without dialogue or traditional character animation, the film relies entirely on simulated movement, camera language, sound design, and an expressive original score to convey romance, comedy, and tragedy.

Smith spent two years crafting the project, choreographing sliding marble bodies, trembling pedestals, and reactive paintings into a tightly controlled visual choreography. “The story is told entirely through the creative movements and camera angles of inanimate objects interacting during an earthquake,” he tells us.

Inspired by his evangelical Christian upbringing, Smith describes the film as “a story about love, lust, and letting go of regressive messages about our bodies and our desires.” Equal parts playful and personal, Yearn transforms rigid marble figures into vehicles for vulnerability, rebellion, and desire.