Derby!
2021 · 2m
Directed by Zoe Mccuen
Genres: animation, comedy, sports
A mouse who wants to play roller derby with all the other animals!
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Look, a plucky underdog animal learning to roller derby is the kind of premise that makes every festival programmer nod along—which is exactly why I'm not interested. If this film had gone genuinely weird with it, leaned into the absurdity or flipped the power dynamic entirely, I'd be here for it, but 'small creature has big dreams' is the opposite of subversive.
McCuen's 2-minute form is tidy and the whimsy lands with practiced precision, suggesting a filmmaker aware of how stop-motion comedy has been refined through decades of shorts—though I'd need to see how the editing carries the emotional beats beneath the surface charm to place it in any meaningful tradition.
That 2-minute constraint is where the craft lives: McCuen's chosen to punch the humor and momentum through a specific rhythm in the cuts rather than bloat the action, and the decision to keep the mouse's determination played completely straight against the slapstick chaos around it is what makes this feel like more than just a concept.