Animation short film

MISUNDERSHOOD

My name is Iryna Sosimovych,

I'm an animation director &

animator from Ukraine 🇺🇦

@marginai_

I'm a young and ambitious director who just graduated from Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Fine Arts, but during my studies my films won a bunch of awards at international festivals. I am currently building a team of hardworking and enthusiastic professionals for the new project.

A new project is an animated short film about a boy Oleksa who has undiagnosed autism who learns to live with a mask, hiding his personality. When war breaks out in his world, he both loses and regains everything…

This story is autobiographical,

filled with living metaphors that the rt of animation allows me to bring.

Why this project?

This is reflection on my own life, which began after I went into deep therapy, which I needed when I lost everything when the war came to Kharkiv. That is why this story needs to be told.

It is a presentation of the experience of a Ukrainian in the war and a representation of a sensitive person, because not everyone is a “hero” in their own story. The uniqueness of the project is in the perspective from which we will show the events - the protagonist has a special view of the world, and as you can understand, I share my experience from this side as well. I’m still in therapy, and a little I am ashamed, but I want to show a person on the autism spectrum in a different way than is usually done. My story is an in-depth look into the experience of living on the spectrum with all the challenges and specifics.

"What does it feel like to hide

your true self until you lose it completely?"

This is the longline. The focus is on the central theme, which is a representation of the phenomenon of autistic masking - when a neurodiverse person is forced to adapt to the world in order to somehow fit in.

The world and the historical period, specifically life in Ukraine during the big war, are the triggers for the story, when the hero Oleksa's usual routine is destroyed and he regresses in his fragile world - at the beginning of the military activity, he drops his mask due to stress, it breaks and Oleksa literally becomes a little boy who loses everything he had. This is the climax of the plot, the darkest time of the hero. This little guy is picked up by a big woman, and they escape from the war zone. Without telling the whole scenario, I'll just say that in a certain sense, everyone wears masks and has to accept the challenges of life. Oleksa relied too much on his fictional identity and suffered from it, and his new girlfriend taught him how to find strength without losing himself.

Animatic in progress

Stages & plans for the universe

This short film is the first step in the plans for this project.

For 2025, I have plans to complete the film and send it on a festival tour. Next, we're writing a graphic novel, which consists of many stories of Oleksa's special summer and his new friends. From this we form a script for the episodes of the animated series.

With this story, I traveled to major animation festivals in Europe that year, pitched at MIFA in Annecy, Cartoon Springboard, attended the SYAA workshop, and gained experience at other events. The team is almost full, the script is ready, everything is prepared for the start of production, and we are waiting for funding from the state WE WON THE FUNDING!

marginai.4work@gmail.com