S

S was one of the Official Selections from the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation and Technology’s 2024 festival that accepted the Filmmaker Mixer Podcast’s offer to review their work. This animated short film uses both stop motion and 2D animation to give us an abstract portrayal of the interconnection between life and art. A live action (real) man sits at a strange contraption, spinning the wheels (in stop motion), to make an animation play, which depicts a surreal and abstract series of moving images that depict what appears to be some kind of living thing that feeds off of small dashes to survive. If I were to describe this short with one word it would be “mesmerizing.” It’s incredibly beautiful to look at and the animation is fantastic. It’s smooth, it’s satisfying, and it puts you in a bit of a trance.

-Madelyn, Filmmaker Mixer Correspondent