Annecy Short ‘Cartoon Physics’ Explores A Mother’s Meditation On Her Daughter’s First Encounter With Death (EXCLUSIVE TRAILER)

Among this year’s packed Miyu lineup of titles heading to Annecy is Cartoon Physics, the latest short from Oscar-nominated filmmakers Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter.

Produced and distributed by the French indie, the 11-minute short marks the duo’s first film since Negative Space, their acclaimed 2017 adaptation of Ron Koertge’s poem that earned an Academy Award nomination and won dozens of festival prizes worldwide. Cartoon Brew is excited to debut the trailer for Cartoon Physics ahead of its world premiere next week in Annecy’s short film competition:

Inspired by a poem by Nick Flynn, Cartoon Physics follows a mother whose four-year-old daughter discovers a dead bird in the backyard. Faced with her child’s first encounter with mortality, the mother retreats into a world governed by the impossible rules of classic cartoons, where death and consequence can be undone with comic ease.

The filmmakers describe the film as “a quiet meditation on a mother’s attempt to protect her daughter’s sense of wonder, even as she knows that childhood must eventually brush up against the truth.”

The directors explained to us that:

We made this film for our daughter, and she was part of it the whole way through. So many people gave so much to this, and we’re grateful to all of them. After many years of living with the film, we’re very happy to put it in front of audiences at Annecy next week!

In addition to its poetic inspirations, the film’s screenplay grew out of semi-unscripted recordings made over the course of a year between the directors’ four-year-old and her mother.

A France-Netherlands-Switzerland coproduction between Miyu Productions, Ka-Ching Cartoons, and Hélium Films, the short combines stop-motion animation with the deeply personal storytelling that has defined Kuwahata and Porter’s collaborative work for nearly two decades. This is a title well worth taking time to seek out at this year’s festival.