WORMWOOD
2024 · 9m · FR
Directed by Matthieu Dupille, Chenhe Liu, Philemon Martin, Ninon Quemener, Alexander Vanderplank, Binlin Xie
Genres: animation, drama, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
When the radiation suddenly vanishes from a Chernobyl-like exclusion zone, a monitoring station worker races back to his abandoned childhood village hoping to reclaim his lost past.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Six student directors made a film about the psychic impossibility of going home inside a radiation zone that suddenly un-excludes itself — the kind of premise that sounds like a trap, which is exactly why I want in.
A Gobelins student film using radioactive decay as grief metaphor in lush 2D — the school's craft baseline is high, and the Scavengers Reign comparison is earned for the post-disaster animation register.
Gobelins student film treating radioactive decay as a metaphor for grief in lush 2D animation — that's the kind of metaphor-and-medium fit Gobelins teams reliably pull off. Nine minutes feels just right for the elegy.
Reviews
Wormwood's lingering impact comes from the fact that it challenges us to confront the discomfort of our own existence and the choices we make.