If Anything Happens I Love You

A mother and father live apart inside the same house after losing their daughter in a school shooting. The film runs twelve minutes and contains no dialogue. Will McCormack and Michael Govier wrote and directed it, the first film for both. Its device is shadow animation. As Govier explained it, the shadows represent emotions people could not reach, and he said a live-action version would be way too intense. The animation, the music and the lead producing were all done by an all-female crew. They used TVPaint and watercolour backgrounds for a deliberately unpolished look meant to reflect the emptiness of grief. Netflix released it on 20 November 2020. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 100 percent. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 93rd ceremony in April 2021. After the Netflix release the hashtag trended on TikTok and viewers shared their own reactions. Who it is for: viewers who like short animation and wordless storytelling. Who it is not for: anyone who needs to stay away from the subject. It is about losing a child in a school shooting and it softens nothing in twelve minutes.