20 December 2025
The Shyness of Trees - Nominated for the 2026 Academy Award for Best Animated Short
Parents age, get old and die. That’s the way of things but often it comes way too soon, even when they have reached a good age. The adult children left behind are sometimes far less willing to accept (or even welcome) the inevitability of death than the parent.
Such is the case with Hélène, a 40 year old who arrives to
visit her mother and is shocked by what she discovers. It seems that her mother has let herself and
her home “go” and she has formed a strange bond with the large tree that
overlooks her property – not to mention the bugs that live in and around it. Yet
over the space of the next few hours, she will reconcile not only to her mother’s
imminent death but to her acceptance of this glorious circle of life.
The Shyness of Trees was created by Sofia
Chuikovska, Loick du Plessis D’Argentre, Lina Han, Simin He, Jiaxin Huang, Maud
Le Bras, and Bingqing Shu. It was done during
their time at Gobelins (a prestigious Paris-based school internationally
renowned for its excellence in animation, visual effects, and digital arts
education.). It has been nominated for the
2026 Academy Award for Best Animated Short and richly deserves this – although
I am sure that some of the neo-animators involved must now be wondering how
they go on to surpass this!
