TO THE CLASS OF US
2024 · 3m
Directed by Veda Lee
Genres: animation, coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
On high school graduation day, two friends learn how to say goodbye to the past -- and most importantly, to each other.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A graduation goodbye story—the most consensus coming-of-age beat in the playbook—but I'm genuinely curious what Lee does with animation to make it feel like anything other than tasteful wallpaper for a familiar ache.
The restraint here is impeccable: a three-minute animation that trusts silence and duration to carry the weight of parting, situtating itself squarely in the lineage of tender, formally disciplined shorts about threshold moments.
There's a specific choice in how the animation handles the space between these two friends—negative space, maybe, or a particular color shift at the moment of separation—that's doing all the emotional labor, and that's where Lee's craft lives.