Vic
2016 · 5m · España
Directed by Paula Luna Bericat
Genres: animation, comedy, satire
Tones: absurdist, melancholic, whimsical
In recent years technology has advanced so much that in offices we have stopped using material that once seemed indispensable. This has caused pain to Vic, an old-fashioned Bic pen, who will try to attract his owner's attention by any means possible.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A sentient pen having an existential crisis over obsolescence should feel like cheap whimsy, but Bericat commits to the bit hard enough that it becomes genuinely unsettling—which is exactly when satire gets teeth.
The film operates within a well-established tradition of object-centric animation (think Jan Švankmajer), and while it doesn't break new formal ground, the restraint in its emotional register—melancholy threading through comedy—shows real compositional discipline.
The decision to make Vic's desperation physical and escalating rather than verbal transforms what could be a one-note premise into something that lands; the animation choices around the pen's frantic movements do all the heavy lifting on a clearly modest budget.