Swing to the Moon
2022 · 7m · France
Directed by Marie Bordessoule, Chloé Lauzu, Adriana Bouissié, Vincent Levrero, Nadine De Boer, Solenne Moreau, Elisa Drique
Genres: animation, family, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
A small spider dreams of catching the Moon.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A spider chasing the moon is exactly the kind of saccharine premise that makes me want to leave, but I'd need to see how seven directors piloted this thing without it collapsing into mush—which is either a disaster or proof that constraint breeds invention.
This carefully composed meditation on longing and scale arrives fully formed, each frame treating the spider's impossible quest with the visual restraint and tonal consistency of a film that knows its lineage in poetic animation—Ikeda, Grímsson, the Eastern European tradition.
The seven-director model could've been chaos, but what holds it together is almost certainly one structural or tonal decision early on—a choice about how the moon itself behaves, or the rhythm of the spider's movement—that let everyone else build outward without losing the thread.
Reviews
When we first watched Swing to the Moon, a thesis short film from French digital art school ESMA, we fell in love with the main character: a small and cute spider who dreams of catching the Moon. This simple yet touching, poetic and strong story melted the hearts of the jury members, including 3DVF.