The Ferryman
2024 · 2m
Directed by Ava Azarmi
Genres: animation, drama, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, mythic, tender
In a mythological twist on the age-old curmudgeon and child duo, the stoic Ferryman guides the spirit of a playful little girl across the River Styx.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's Charon meets moppet, which should be insufferable, but Azarmi refuses the sentimental trap—there's a real friction between the mythic weight and the girl's lightness that keeps it from collapsing into treacle.
Azarmi positions herself in a lineage of animation that treats classical mythology with formal restraint; the pacing and negative space here echo something closer to Halas & Batchelor than contemporary studio work, and that deliberation is what makes the tenderness land.
The decision to let the girl's chatter exist *against* the Ferryman's silence rather than harmonize with it—that asymmetry of voice is what transforms what could be a greeting-card premise into something that actually breathes.