Skhizein

A meteorite of a hundred and fifty tonnes falls on Henry and does not kill him; it simply shifts him ninety-one centimetres away from his own body. To sit in a chair he now has to sit ninety-one centimetres past it, and to use the telephone he has to grip the air. Jérémy Clapin takes this single idea all the way in thirteen minutes, and what is funny becomes tragic by degrees: nobody believes what Henry says, the psychiatrist puts him on medication, and the distance keeps growing. The short presents losing your mind not as a metaphor but as a measurable displacement. Clapin later moved to features and carried the same preoccupation with him. Who it is for: viewers who like conceptual short animation and single-idea storytelling. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a feature, since this runs thirteen minutes.