Céline Roustan
As young Mehrdad visits a cemetery to draw, he meets Chiyo, an older woman, with whom he develops a friendship, until her sudden disappearance. Now an adult, he dusts off his old sketchbook and reminisces about that emotionally profound time in his life. With The Old Young Crow, writer/director Liam LoPinto blends live action and animation to craft a personal and metaphorical coming-of-age narrative. Inspired by authentic and raw emotions, the film is both innovative and intricately layered, delivering a deeply touching and compelling narrative.
“It’s a mission statement of the kind of films I want to make”
“This film was born out of a major personal health and identity crisis”, is one of the first things LoPinto shares with us, as we discuss The Old Young Crow. Explaining that a meeting with Shohreh Golparian, credited as Associate Producer, triggered a desire to “make a film about my own diaspora in Japan”. Unable to finish it at the time, it’s was six years later that he finally completed the film. Initially, it did not have as much animation, but finding his own old sketchbooks was paramount in the process of leading him in this new direction and allowing him to get to the finish line, which he describes as “a sort of personal catharsis”. Given the deeply personal nature of the film, it naturally reflects LoPinto as an artist and by integrating both animation and live action it aligns with his mission statement of “crossing mediums and cultures and languages in order to reconnect with my own.”
In most instances, blending animation and live action adds something to the visual experience, but narratively can feel a bit (if not a lot) gimmicky. In The Old Young Crow, this fusion of styles is integral to the narrative, as the film deals with memory, Mehrad’s youthful vision of life, and, most importantly, it stems from his own old sketchbook. “I had to establish a rule that the animation had to essentially be an extension of the sketchbook and tie together not only the mediums of live action and animation, but also the memory of the past with the present”, LoPinto reveals.
The sketchbooks play an important role in both the style and story of the short.
The Old Young Crow is the kind of film that you can watch multiple times and still discover new elements in the frame. The attention to detail is breathtaking and incredibly meticulous, the frame constantly filled with elements that either move the narrative forward or build the general atmosphere of the film. The impressive craft ensures seamless transitions between the contrasting styles, and it’s because both styles interact with each other so effectively that the film immerses us in its universe, granting us access to Mehrad’s memories and how he grasps them today.
Another guiding line through The Old Young Crow, giving the film its entertaining nature, thrilling pacing and immersing us in Iranian culture, is the score and soundtrack. The sound design makes the animation feel more vibrant and gives the drawings a realistic quality, even the ones that come off more as metaphorical. And of course, the ’90s song Hejrat by Iranian icon Googoosh perfectly captures Mehrdad’s innocent perspective and adds an epic quality to the short through its captivating tune and rhythm.
Ahead of its online premiere as a Vimeo Staff Pick, The Old Young Crow had an impressive festival run, with notable stops at Short Shorts, Curtas Vila do Conde, AFI Fest and Palm Springs where it won the Best of Fest Award. Currently FYC in the Best Live Action Short category of the Oscars, S/W alum and Academy Award winner Rayka Zehtabchi has joined the team as an EP. LoPinto is currently working on multiple projects, including a documentary on paleontological digs that once again combines animation and live action, a short about therapy and refugees, a debut feature about how his parents met and the feature adaptation of The Old Young Crow.