Moonwolves
2016 · 12m · Sweden
Directed by Nima Yousefi, Oskar Gullstrand, Jonas Lindman
Genres: animation, family, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
The Moonwolves love everything that glitters and shines, but most of all the moon itself — and one night their longing grows so intense they decide to try to go there.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Moonwolves plays it straight in the worst way—luminous creatures yearning for the moon is exactly the whimsical premise that gets greenlit a thousand times, and this one doesn't subvert or complicate it, just executes it competently and calls it done.
A formally assured piece of Nordic animation that understands the lineage of Scandinavian fairy-tale sensibility; the restraint in its emotional register and the precision of its design choices situate it squarely in a tradition of measured, contemplative children's cinema.
The decision to keep the wolves' actual journey to the moon almost entirely offscreen—letting the longing itself become the whole film—is the specific choice that transforms a simple premise into something genuinely haunting and economical.