Wild Summon
2023 short film
Wild Summon is a 2023 eco fantasy animated short film directed by the filmmaking duo Karni Arieli and Saul Freed, also known as 'Karni & Saul', and narrated by British singer Marianne Faithfull in her final film role before her death in 2025. The 14-minute film depicts the life of a female salmon in the human form of a free diver. Wild Summon premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or for Best Short Film. It has been featured in a number of international film festivals, including the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and the Raindance Film Festival, where it won an award for Best Short Film. In January 2024, filmmakers Adam McKay, Kevin Messick, Guy Nattiv and Jaime Ray Newman came aboard as executive producers of the film.
On December 21, 2023, the film was shortlisted for the 96th Academy Awards in the category of Best Animated Short Film but ultimately was not nominated.
The short film can be watched on the directors' official Vimeo channel.
01Summary
Having laid her eggs in the river, a mother salmon has died. Weeks later in the water, one of the salmon's offspring, a female, hatches out and begins her life, keeping herself safe among the pebbles.
When the seasons change, the salmon and her school migrate out to sea. Along the way, the salmon gets tagged before being released back into the wild. After swimming for months, the salmon arrives in the sea where she will grow bigger and stronger for the migration back home.
After living in the sea for a few years, the now adult salmon has mated and she and her school migrate back to the river where they were born. As she reaches the spawning ground, the salmon has survived several obstacles: predators which devour most of her school, water pollution, overfishing, and disease affecting farmed salmon.
Upon successfully coming home, the salmon lays her eggs and dies. In the water, the salmon's eggs develop, continuing the cycle of life and death.
02Production
The film received funding from the British Film Institute and was made with a combination of live footage and 3D computer animation over the course of two years. The live footage was shot in Iceland during the pandemic, and the computer animation, produced by the Bristol-based Sulkybunny Studio, was made primarily with the Autodesk Maya, Arnold and SythnEyes software, and the compositing was done using Adobe After Effects.
03Reception
Since its release, the film has been selected in various festivals around the world:
| Year | Festivals | Award/Category | Status | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Cannes International Film Festival | Palme d'Or for Best Short Film | Nominated | |
| Annecy International Animated Film Festival | Cristal for Best Short Film | Nominated | ||
| Stockholm Film Festival | Bronze Horse for Best Short Film | Nominated | ||
| Raindance Film Festival | Best Short Film | Won | ||
| Hamptons International Film Festival | Golden Starfish Award for Best Documentary Short | Nominated | ||
| Fantasy Filmfest | Get Shorty Award (Audience Award) | Won | ||
| Blue Danube Film Festival | Best Animated Film | Nominated | ||
| Animation Is Film Festival | Special Jury Prize for Best Short Film | Won | ||
| Healdsburg Film Festival | Grand Jury Prize | Won |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Wild Summon”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Wild Summon Film Poster.jpg by The poster art copyright is believed to belong to the distributor of the item promoted, the publisher of the item promoted or the graphic artist., Fair use
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