Short of the Day
An animated film tackles the struggle of personal reflection.
The past is a tricky thing. On the one hand, it makes us who we are; every triumph, every tragedy, every mistake, every success, the bad and the good we’ve done and had done to us in the end all pool into the collective character we are. The past teaches us, it reveals us, but on the other hand it also shames us, it burdens us, and in some cases even prevents us from progressing through our present into a better future, so mired by our pasts are we.
So then on occasion you might find yourself wondering, is an acknowledgment of my past necessary for my present existence? Just because I’ve been who I’ve been, do I need to carry that person with me in my modern self? Can I let go of the past without destroying my future, or is the future meaningless without the survival of my past?
These questions and others like them got directors and animators Niv Shpigel and Robert Moreno Meikins thinking, and the result is the following short film LOAD, a narrative about an elderly man being crushed beneath the weight of his past and struggling with if and how he should let it go. The animation style is as abstract as the concept, which makes it the perfect pairing. There is despair in the way the story unfolds and is told, but there is also a spark of hope that will keep you emotionally rapt all the way through. LOAD is as experimental as it is experiencial and as such better seen than discussed. Please, please, please take the nine minutes required to watch this sadly beautiful rumination on the toll – as well as the resilience – of being human.