Wade (film)

Wade is an Indian 2D animated short film written and directed by Upamanyu Bhattacharyya and Kalp Sanghvi. It follows a group of climate change refugees in Kolkata, India, as they are attacked by an ambush of Royal Bengal Tigers. It imagines futures around sea level rise, global warming, ecological disruption and mass migration.

Wade
A poster showing all the characters in Wade, standing in a group. The girl on the raft is in the foreground.
Directed byUpamanyu Bhattacharyya
Kalp Sanghvi
Written byUpamanyu Bhattacharyya
Kalp Sanghvi
Produced byUpamanyu Bhattacharyya
Kalp Sanghvi
Arya Menon
Prateek Sethi
Paolo Polesello
Music byTroy Vasanth
Production
company
Ghost Animation
Distributed byPremium Films
Release date
  • 24 October 2020 (2020-10-24)
Running time
10 minutes 38 seconds
CountryIndia
LanguageSilent

The film was made in Kolkata by Ghost Animation and premiered at the Annecy International Animation Festival 2020, where it won the City of Annecy Award.

Premise

Kolkata, India, in the near future, has been badly affected by climate change and sea level rise. The floodwater has forced most people to move out of the city, turning it into a ghost town. The Sundarbans forest, just to the city's southern fringe, has also been devastated, forcing a lot of wildlife, including tigers, to move north into the shell of Kolkata.

However, a few people remain in the city, wading around, looking for sustenance. A family of climate change refugees arrive in a flooded Park Street, where they are attacked by a hungry tiger. While some are killed, the rest manage to flee into a building nearby, leaving behind a blind girl who uses a raft made of plastic bottles for her conveyance.

When a much larger ambush of tigers arrives on the scene, things begin to take a dark turn when both species go to extraordinary lengths to survive.

Production

Writing

Writing began in April, 2016, in Mumbai. The film subsequently took inspiration from writings such as The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh and The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells. For reference for the background art, the crew took photographs in Park Street, Kumartuli, and Shovabazar in Kolkata. The crew made research trips to Alipore Zoo to study the movements of Royal Bengal Tigers.

Crowdfunding

In September 2016, the film ran a successful crowdfunding campaign on the Indian crowdfunding platform, Wishberry.

Animation

The film was animated on Adobe Photoshop, TVPaint and Krita. Production largely took place in the Ghost Animation studio in Kolkata, and the directors worked with a team of 30 artists. The film was made in a 4:3 aspect ratio to make the human-tiger standoff situations feel more 'claustrophobic'. The film was composited on Adobe AfterEffects. The sound design was executed on Ableton, and audio recordings took place in a river Vashind, Maharashtra, to add authenticity to the nature sounds and splashes.

Festival screenings

'Wade' has played in numerous festivals globally, and also went on a domestic tour in India, playing in 23 venues across 8 cities.

Festival Country Award Result
2020 Annecy International Animation Festival France City of Annecy Award Winner [1]
2020 Fantasia International Film Festival Canada Satoshi Kon Award for Best Animated Short Winner [2]
2020 Odense International Film Festival Denmark Artist Award Winner [3]
2020 Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films USA Best Animated Short, Best of the Festival Nominated [4]
2020 Brooklyn Film Festival USA Audience Award Winner [5]
2020 Krakow Film Festival Poland Golden Dragon Nominated [6]
2020 Melbourne International Film Festival Australia City of Melbourne Award Nominated [7]
2020 Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival UK Animated Encounters Grand Prix Nominated [8]
2020 Animayo Film Festival Gran Canaria Best Art Direction Winner [9]
2020 Austin Film Festival USA Best Animated Short Film Nominated
2020 Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival South Korea Best Animated Short Film Nominated [10]
2020 Manchester Animation Festival UK Best Animated Short Film Nominated [11]
2020 Vancouver International Film Festival Canada Best Animated Short Film Nominated [12]
2021 Atlanta Film Festival USA Best Animated Short Film Nominated [13]

References
  1. "Home > Festival > Awards > Film index Award winner". www.annecy.org. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  2. "Un succès éclatant pour l'édition virtuelle de Fantasia". Fantasia Festival. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  3. "The winners and nominees of OFF20". Odense International Film Festival. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  4. "Wade | Palm Springs International Film Festival". psfilmfest.org. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  5. "Festival Winners @ Brooklyn Film Festival". Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  6. "Wade - Film of 60th KFF". Krakow Film Festival. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  7. "MIFF Archive". MIFF 2020. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  8. "Encounters Film Festival 2020 Catalogue". Issuu. 11 December 2020. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  9. "Les courts métrages asiatiques du Festival d'Annecy 2020 passés à la loupe". Cine-Asie : Votre source #1 sur l'Asie (in French). Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  10. "서울국제만화애니메이션페스티벌". 서울국제만화애니메이션페스티벌. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  11. Henderson, Steve (2020). "Manchester Animation Festival 2020 Brochure" (PDF). Manchester Animation Festival 2020 Brochure. 2020: 33.
  12. Lang, Jamie (19 June 2020). "Annecy Announces Special Prize, MIFA Pitch Prize Winners". Variety. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  13. Mukherjee, Anusua (25 September 2020). "In the acclaimed 'Wade, climate change returns Kolkata to the swamps it was reclaimed from". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
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