Stay
2022 · 5m · UK
Directed by Yu Sun
Genres: animation, experimental
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
A young girl watches her father grow emotionally absent as he remains perpetually distracted by his phone, charting the widening distance between them through hand-embroidered animation. The film is a quiet meditation on how parental inattentiveness shapes a child's sense of being unloved — and on the possibility of repair.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
726 hand-embroidered frames over four months to tell me phones make dads distant. The craft is genuinely insane; the message is a fridge magnet.
Seven hundred and twenty-six pieces of hand-embroidery on tracing paper, anchored by Louise Bourgeois — the labor is the meaning, in the lineage of Christine Rebet or William Kentridge's process-as-content. Five minutes of devotion.
Animated digitally, printed on tracing paper, then hand-embroidered (about 726 pieces across four months) by the director and seven assistants — anchored by a Louise Bourgeois quote about thread as forgiveness. The labor is the metaphor here, and at 5 minutes it should sustain without overstaying.
Reviews
The effect is both truly mesmerising, especially as the pace/edit quickens in the film's final third, and technically impressive — a welcome reminder of the creative possibilities available at the hands of talented animators.
The jury praised the film's ability to balance minimalist visuals with tangible emotion.
Festivals
- Edinburgh International Film Festival 2022, McLaren Award for Best British Animation
- NAHEMI Student Film Awards 2022, Overall Best National Student Film