Plum
2022 · 5m · Francia
Directed by Angèle Lopez, Balkis Hadra, Luana Bertelli, Nicolas Delabeye, Nolan Michel
Genres: animation, coming-of-age, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, whimsical
When Plum hatches from his egg, the little dinosaur is not ready for the universe into which he has been born. Carefree and mischievous, he roams watched by a dragonfly; however, his innocence is shattered when he makes a terrible discovery about his world.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A coming-of-age fable wrapped in pastel dinosaur aesthetic—it's doing the expected thing, the arrival-of-darkness beat we've seen a thousand times, just with better fur texture. Competent, but I'm not seeing the subversion; it's melancholy by design, not by accident.
The tonal architecture here is precisely calibrated—the shift from whimsy to contemplation tracks a lineage running through Stop-Motion and European animation traditions, and the formal restraint in how the 'terrible discovery' unfolds shows real curatorial control over when to withhold and when to reveal.
That moment when the dragonfly's shadow lands differently on the frame—when you realize it's not just companionship but witness—is the hinge the whole short turns on, and the five directors nailed the single gesture that transforms a cute premise into something genuinely haunting.