Some of the best nine minutes I’ve spent watching film in a while.

Animated shorts are really a narrative treasure, bruh. Artists can get so much done in little time, and the product could be just as compelling as a full-length feature film. “Canvas” follows the story of a widower coping with the loss of his wife and navigating the social support of his daughter and granddaughter as he learns to love to paint again. It was so pure, and beautifully directed.

Not sure what it is about non-verbal emoting in animation that heightens the narrative to a personable motif, but between that, the score, and the directing, “Canvas” was a knockout. The juxtaposition in the visible texture of the film using two different animation styles, one resembling a canvas and the other a traditional warm-toned 3-dimensional animation, was beautiful. I could feel my tears begin to swell when the styles switched back and forth.

The score acts as its own character in this short. Beautifully applied and directed. A standout.

Umm, I love to be that inclusion/representation hag, especially for a medium where I’m not used to seeing folks who look like me represented in a highly visible way (run-on), so shouts to the animators, director/writer, and storyboard artists who made sure to emphasize the hair textures, the browns of the characters’ irises, the creases under the grandfather’s eyes—allat!! ‘Twas gorgeous. You can tell such care went into every aspect of the film.