Stay | A Hand-Embroidered Short Film about Absent Parents

Needles are used to repair damage. Stay is a 5-minute animated film made using hand embroidery on tracing paper, depicting the relationship between a daughter and her absent father. It's a reminder to spend more time with the people you love even if you are busy.

A selection of Short of the Week, the web's leading curators of quality short films.

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🪡 Stay
Dir. Yu Sun
https://www.yusunnnnnn.com/

One of the things I’ve always loved about animation are the endless possibilities the medium offers. It’s not just in the storytelling that these options exist, the techniques may not be limitless, but there are so many different approaches you can take. We’ve seen sand, wool, wood and people all put to use in animated shorts and while Yu Sun’s short Stay isn’t the first ever to use embroidery, it’s a welcome reminder of the creative possibilities available at the hands of talented animators.

Stay opens with a pair of hands manipulating a line of red thread and after they’ve intricately spelt out the short’s title, they’re passed to the hands of a young girl in the form of a cat’s cradle. As we pull out of the close-up, we see the owner of these young hands, as a wider shot reveals the girl sat a table with her mother and father. With the child eager to now play with her dad, she offers the string game to him, but unfortunately, he’s more interested in his phone. From here, we’re introduced to the themes of the short, as it unravels into a fascinating exploration of the cyclical trauma caused by an absent father. - S/W Curator, Rob Munday
FULL REVIEW: https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2023/0...

CAST + CREW
Animator: Yu Sun
Composer: Mickenson Nemorin
Sound designer: Zoltán Kadnár
Sewing: Yu Sun
Sewing assistant: Yunnuo Liu, Ruozhang Liao, Urte Karvelyte, Xinya Shi, Despina Markaki

Reproduced on this channel with the permission of the filmmakers.