Gaia, an animated short film that pays tribute to animals killed by the Australian bush fires, is streaming online at DepicT and has won the Audience Award.
The film was created by a group of Bournemouth University (BU) students and was selected from over 1300 entries to be part of the DepicT film festival. The film was among 22 finalists and went on to win the Audience Award, voted for by the public.
Gaia tells the story of an Australian Koala caught up in a dangerous fire. Gaia means ‘Mother Earth’ and the film is a social tribute to the animals killed in the Australian bush fires this season.
The short film is a collaboration between a number of BU Masters students from across the world. The group of filmmakers consided of: Tijana Trifunović, Sydney Elizabeth Hopkin, Katie Eyre, Torrac Percy Siganporia, Wilson Tang and Brenda Ximena Roldan Romero.
Katie Eyre, who contributed environment modelling, fireman modelling and texturing to the film, said: "Working as a part of the team that produced Gaia was such an amazing experience, not only is the message of the film something I’m very passionate about but the team are the most supportive and talented group of people, it was such a pleasure to work with everyone".
Gaia has also been selected for a number of other international film festivals including Thessaloniki Animation Festival and the 7th Flamingo Film Festival.
The film’s director, Brenda Ximena Roldan Romero said: “Gaia was originally inspired by the bushfires in Australia. Once the news started showing the devastation of over a billion animals who lost their lives during these events, we knew we wanted to create a short animation that would make our audience think and reflect on our actions towards the planet.
“We focused on koalas as we learned that they were especially vulnerable to bushfires. Koalas tend to climb trees to feel safe, which once fires become wild, they have no place to run or escape.
“Collaborating in this film with such an amazing team was a great experience, as well as the support from our amazing NCCA [National Centre for Computer Animation] Supervisors Sofrinis Efstathiou and Hammadi Nait-Charif. We are pleased to say that we are currently in a festival run until the end of 2020.”
You can watch the film online at DepicT here.
