As If Swallowed By Earth
2025 · 14m · France
Directed by Natalia León
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Olivia, a young woman living abroad, returns to her hometown in Mexico hoping to reconnect with her past, but the violence she witnessed as a child has not abated, and the journey rekindles traumatic memories of disappeared women that are impossible to reconcile with the present.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Autofiction animation contrasting vibrant child memory with black-and-white adult return — the Mexican femicide context lifts this above generic memory-piece. Personal stakes give the form its purpose.
Autofiction animation of the Mexican feminicide epidemic, with childhood-in-color and adulthood-in-monochrome as the structural device — Persepolis is the obvious lineage, and Natalia León's lived stakes give the form its necessary weight. Serious work.
Fourteen minutes of autofiction animation where younger Olivia's Mexico is vibrant color and adult Olivia's is black-and-white — collapsing personal trauma and the femicide epidemic into a single chromatic structure. That's animation doing what live action can't here.
Reviews
An immersive and deeply intimate approach to a tragic epidemic, using the craft of animation in surprising and poignant ways.
This film was born from a very deep fear of mine. I wanted to make this film as a way to refuse that fear.
Festivals
- Palm Springs International ShortFest 2025
- Sundance Film Festival 2025, Short Film Jury Award for Animation
- LA Shorts International Film Festival 2025, Best Animation
- Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2025