Other French animation schools may have a longer history, more notable alumni, and more hype—we joke that the annual drop of student films from Gobelins should be proclaimed a holiday for the animation-lovers the world over—yet, for my money, no institution at this moment beats Piktura at consistently producing truly great student shorts. Known for blending high-craft 3D with mature, emotionally resonant storytelling, the school, formerly Pôle 3D, has seen its recent works vault to the top of the animation world, picking up prestigious prizes like SIGGRAPH’s Best in Show, and even our own coveted “Short of the Year” in 2024.Au 8ème jour (On the 8th Day), fresh off an 18-month run on French television, is the school’s latest release, and we highly recommend it. Unlike previous selections such as Migrants or Les Larmes de la Seine, it isn’t defined by a sharp political stance. Instead, it offers a familiar—though effective—environmentalist parable built around a potent metaphor for the interconnectedness of all life. What elevates it is the remarkable polish of its execution, the genuine emotion it stirs, and an apocalyptic sense of scale and foreboding that feels attuned to the current moment.The work of 5 students—Agathe Sénéchal, Alicia Massez, Elise Debruyne, Flavie Carin, and Théo Duhautois—learning under the tutelage of Pedagogical Director Carlos de Carvalho (an S/W alum in his own right), the film initially plays like a cozy-craft take on a nature film. Soaring through the air with flocks of exotic birds, swinging across the vines with monkeys, and building intricate webs with spiders, the film opens as a Planet Earth montage with a notable distinguishing factor—all the animals and environs look like hand-crafted stop-motion puppets, and each animal is connected to a trailing strand of yarn.This intro is a joy to watch, though arguably repetitive, and while the style is quite an accomplishment, we wonder whether this technique of making 3D look like stop-motion, utilized in Migrants as well as student shorts like Stuffed, will prove to be a fad. Still, no previous film has matched this level of tactile quality. To find a comparison, one must summon recollection of Anushka Naanayakkara’s A Love Story, a film that is made with actual yarn!We’re more than a third through its 8-minute runtime before the complication presents itself—the threads are being transformed, overtaken by a blackness that is running through them, leaving corruption in its wake. Honestly, it seems a bit silly to type this, but something about this presentation I found devastating! The combination of sheer world-building scale, the speed and effectiveness of the corrupting action, the dramatic, violin-heavy score, and the film’s poetic, quiet conclusion, combined to trip up my emotional equilibrium. While blunt in its themes, the film is not preachy or didactic; it is simply mournful. While stylistically dissimilar, in emotional impact, I compare it to the end of Princess Mononoke after the confrontation with the Shishigami, as it seeks to evoke that uniquely Japanese flavor of the elegiac.Am I being a sap? I’ve seen the film multiple times, and it is still able to stir me. Festival-goers must agree—the film won Oscar-qualifying awards at Santa Barbara and Bend, in addition to prizes at Palm Springs, SIGGRAPH Asia, and Zagreb. I’m curious what you think? Leave a comment here, or on YouTube.