Experiencing Interruptions?

A Little Story

A Little Story is a short stop motion film that follows three deserted objects found on the streets of Paris. A negative film, a golden key, and a necklace face loneliness and homelessness till they are anonymously helped and each find a home for themselves as neighbors in a recycled city.

  • Nada Serhan
    Director
  • Nada Serhan
    Writer
  • Nada Serhan
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Experimental, Short
  • Genres:
    social, surrealism, fantastic
  • Runtime:
    2 minutes 30 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    February 26, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    76 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Palestine, State of
  • Country of Filming:
    France
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Nada Serhan

Nada Serhan is a Palestinian emerging filmmaker, writer and visual artist. Currently residing in France, her childhood saw her live between Kuwait and Cyprus and eventually moved to Lebanon till adulthood. After working as an educator and project coordinator for seven years, a coincidental opportunity working in an international film festival in Qatar found her back to her first love; film. She completed her MA in Literature and Filmmaking at American University in Washington DC in 2014, after which she worked as a casting coordinator in Washington DC. In 2016, Nada moved to Paris for the one-year program in Filmmaking at EICAR and has been living there since. In 2020 she completed her first short, Wanting, an award winning psychological thriller. She recently completed her second short stop motion A Little Story. A recipient of the Artistes en Exile scholarship from PAUSE - College de France, Nada is currently in production of My Wasteland, a Science fiction short animation on PTSD of displacement . She is also working on a collection of autobiographical poetry titled Colonized Child and a short illustrated book titled My Wasteland (to accompany the short film). In addition, Nada is an amateur photographer whose work has been included at the Monochrome BlankWall Gallery competition (2020 in Athens) and Chania International Photography Festival (2022 in Chania). Across her art, her work concentrates on the human psyche, relationships, navigating the meaning of spaces, identity and the body within these spaces.

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Director Statement

I had been stumbling across unique items on the streets of Paris since summer 2019. Originally, I came up with the idea of creating an art installation with these items, building homes for them and writing poems on each building imagining a story for each item. By the end of 2020, having not found enough unique items, I came up with the idea of making a short stop motion with these items.

The main reason I wanted to create this simple, almost innocent and naive project was precisely that; in a time period that was dark on all levels from politics and the COVID pandemic, I wanted - or rather needed - something innocent and light, hopeful and childlike in the sweetest way. While I went into production spring of 2021, I found myself right after going through a very difficult experience that paralyzed me emotionally. I endured a personal traumatic ordeal that left me letting go of A Little Story altogether. I had to stop it. The innocence and sweet naivety I set out to capture had completely vanished.

I resumed production at the beginning of 2022. Its theme of innocence - selfless acts of kindness - is still important for me. Deep down inside, I think I am a hopelessly hopeful person believing in others and kindness. Perhaps that is why I still persevere to share this little short for no matter how simple it appears at first sight, the story it tells is an essential story that needs to be told; that of helping others, especially when they are homeless, lost, or helpless.

The style of the short film is a very simply constructed set using recyclable material. I used boxes I had already had and fabric I already owned. I wanted to emphasize sustainability and reusing materials around us to create a whole new world (set). For the aesthetic of the film, I decided to juxtapose the colors of the homes with the darkness that might consume us during our lives; leaving any and all symbolism of the dark to the viewer. As for sound, since I incorporate video and stop motion in a personal way, I thought to myself “why not forget about music and do something different?” Thus, I recorded several sounds from city and nature and finally created and designed an atmosphere reflecting a journey (like that of the characters), reflecting the noise of life, cities and environments where we can easily be forgotten, and a finality that creates hope.