In the Shadow of the Cypress facts for kids

In the Shadow of the Cypress (Persian: در سایه سرو, romanized: Dar saaye sarv) is a 2023 Iranian animated short film directed by Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani, produced by Barfak Animation Studio. The 20-minute film about PTSD premiered in the Orizzonti section of the 80th Venice International Film Festival in 2023. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 97th Academy Awards.

Plot

In this minimalistic, dialog-free tale, a former captain, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, lives with his daughter in an isolated seaside house. One morning, the father destroys the house in a violent rage and shoves his daughter to the ground. She packs a suitcase and prepares to leave, but is interrupted when she steps outside and discovers a beached whale close to their home.

The father and daughter attempt to rescue the whale by dragging it back into the water with their small motorboat, but the efforts fail. Frustrated, the father returns to his dilapidated ship that is anchored near the whale. Despite the ship's poor condition, he clings to its memory, continuing to paint it and live inside it. However, he suffers traumatic flashbacks of an earlier incident, when the ship was bombed at sea, leading to the death of his wife when their daughter was still a young girl. Meanwhile, the daughter cares for the whale, feeding it water and protecting it from the hot sun. When a flock of seagulls (which had earlier given the father a panic attack) tries to attack the whale to feed on it, the father initially chases them off with a shot from his rifle, but then attempts to shoot the whale while still in a rage. The daughter shoves him away before he can do so. She falls to the ground, devastated that they cannot save the whale. Shaken by the sight of her, the father returns to the ship.

In the morning, the daughter looks out the window and realizes that her father is scuttling his ship, tying it to the whale's tail in an effort to finally save it. The plan works, but the father struggles to free the whale from the rope. The daughter attempts to dive and save him, but cannot. Fortunately, the father eventually floats to the surface, having finally untethered himself from the old boat, and the freed whale swims off into the ocean.

Accolades

On 2 March 2025, the film won the Best Animated Short Film award at the 97th Academy Awards.