What is the film about?

Women have a significant role to play in shaping climate-resilient societies. Their needs, challenges, and capacities can lay the foundation for developing solutions that not only address the climate crisis but also pave the way for a sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Let’s harness their power to change the future for generations to come.

What influenced it?

The initial brief from the UN was for the film to enlighten people on the struggles covid has brought to women in rural Asia. Not only has their customer base shrunk making them far worse than before, but many women also have to educate their children at home and look after the elderly without any additional government support. At first, the UN discussed the idea of a letter from the future – something hopeful. Our director Steven Spencer took this concept and expanded upon the idea that these letters are coming from the future generation back in time to say thank you to our strong female protagonist. The story is about her kindness, first to help out her local community and then to share her knowledge with others – this knowledge goes viral helping woman be empowered all over Asia.

It was important for the UN to promote the idea of technology and helping people understand that they can enhance their lives not only with the use of solar technology but also through the use of online market places to make money during such hard times. We added a mysterious magical letter into the narrative to have a more analogue feeling to the film. Mixing technology with traditional handwritten thank you’s we thought were more beautiful than receiving an email or text.

Our director loved the art direction of illustrator Elly MacKay. Her work backlights paper sculptures feel stunning and gentle. This style seemed to fit perfectly with the story.

A little background information...

This film was a sequel to a puppet film we created with UN Woman several years ago.

Thematically we wanted to stick to having an emotional sensitive feeling to the movie but having the protagonist shown as a strong female leader who will fight to help people around her.

How was the film made?

We made miniature 1/20th and 1/50th scale sets for this project allowing us to backlight it against an acrylic sky. These sets were photographed using stop motion if the shot was moving before compositing in the 2D animation.