Experience The Unpredictability Of Parenting In Masayoshi Nakamura’s Bittersweet Sci-Fi Short ‘Mi’

New York-based Masayoshi Nakamura, animation director on previous Cartoon Brew pick Albatross Soup, has made his short film Mi available to watch on Vimeo.

The short was made in collaboration with composer Zak Engel, who wanted to create a film that would express the feelings he experienced while watching his two-year-old son grow up.

Mi is a science fiction short that never gets dystopian and a father-son story with very little family drama. Eschewing the tropes that often accompany those genres, the film instead uses the relentless and unpredictable march of time to inspire empathy in the viewer. One doesn’t need to be a parent to understand the bittersweet emotions the father is feeling as he watches his son grow from the shadows.

Just as a parent can’t know what their child’s future holds, neither can we as a viewer be sure what will happen next. Scene transitions feel like walking through portals into other worlds. There’s a pixelated forest, an underwater city, a rainy café window, a Blade Runner-esque skyline, and a flight through space that could be straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In addition to making the short available on Vimeo, Nakamura has also published a making-of page on his website, where anyone interested can take a deep dive into what went into making the short film.