Crab Day
2023 · 11m · UK
Directed by Ross Stringer
In a fishing community's annual ritual, a young boy must kill his first crab to become a man and gain his father's approval. Instead, he secretly rescues the creature, leading to life-affirming consequences.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Pencil-on-paper stick figures with no mouths and the only color is crab-red painted on cardboard — a coming-of-age ritual film that's also a formal experiment. Worth the eight minutes.
NFTS-incubated and clearly drawn in the Michael Dudok de Wit tradition — mouthless stick figures, monochrome with single-color crabs, painted on cardboard under a rostrum camera. The craft is unmistakably curatorial.
NFTS graduation film at 8:55, only a 32-second trailer up, but the technique — pencil-on-paper, mouthless stick figures, only the crabs red, painted on cardboard under a rostrum camera — is one specific, defensible craft choice from start to finish. That kind of restraint usually means the filmmaker actually built the language they needed.
Reviews
It's delivered with economy and wit and no small degree of pencil-drawn panache.
Art blended with action that gets the point across — animation has never felt so inspired from both a story and art standpoint.
Festivals
- BAFTA Film Awards 2024, Winner
- Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2024
- Animafest Zagreb 2023
- Royal Television Society Awards 2024, Winner