2022

WINNER

/

Animated Short

Re-member

Yo Kohatsu

Late for a meeting, a human opens a conference room door to find it leads to a deep forest. Various creatures – trees, insects and horses – sit in a circle, engaged in a vibrant discussion. The creatures nod to an empty chair and encourage the human to take a seat. It belonged to the human once, after all. But the human does not recall it, nor does he have any intention of joining the meeting.

Indeed the human was part of the meeting once, a long time ago. That was before the human discovered a world outside of the forest, a world inhabited by other humans competing to see who could invent the best tools. Tools used to hurt the creatures, tools used to kill, tools used to build bigger, faster cities. The sudden recovery of memory makes the human want to flee the scene in shame. How could he face the creatures they had so badly hurt?

The forest creatures open up their arms, showing the human how nature has always taken care of itself, recovering and evolving without the help of manmade tools. Suddenly the human re-members that he too is a member of the natural world. He and the creatures are connected. The human takes this recovered knowledge back to the cities where the other humans live, leading to a miracle that reaches all corners of the globe.