The Old Young Crow
2023 · 12m · USA, Japan
Directed by Liam LoPinto
Genres: animation, drama, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, mythic
An Iranian boy who has moved to Tokyo following his mother's death befriends an elderly Japanese woman at a local graveyard, forming an unlikely cross-cultural bond that he later struggles to understand as an old man revisiting his childhood sketchbook.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Iranian-Tokyo cross-cultural kid-meets-old-woman with sketchbook crow — the hybrid live/animation approach is interesting but the premise reads like it was peer-reviewed for sensitivity. Wary.
Liam LoPinto cinematographer-editor-director on a Persian-Japanese hybrid live-action-animation memory piece — Best of Festival at Palm Springs ShortFest is hard-earned. The sketchbook-only crow is a lovely formal device.
Twelve minutes hybridizing live-action with multiple animation styles where the title crow exists only in sketchbook drawings, with the director doubling as sole cinematographer/editor/producer — that authorial unity is rare and visible. Palm Springs Best of Festival win plus Persian/Japanese/English language layering is the kind of formal layering that pays off.
Reviews
With The Old Young Crow, writer/director Liam LoPinto blends live action and animation to craft a personal and metaphorical coming-of-age narrative.
A poetic triumph, experimenting with form to tell an unconventional story about a young boy searching for home in a new country.
Festivals
- Palm Springs International ShortFest 2023, Best of Festival
- Sitges International Film Festival of Catalonia 2023, Gold Screen Young Directors Award, Best Short Film
- AFI Fest 2023
- Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2023
- CAAMFest 2023
- Stockholm International Film Festival 2023