Black Slide

Two kids are sneaking into a water park. Tsuf is excited about the prospect of riding the famous Black Slide but his mate Eviah isn't so sure. But as they queue and get closer to the ride, we see what else is on Eviah's mind.

Uri Lotan draws on his own childhood for this animation which, although it isn't made in stop-motion, evokes the same feeling as watching something shaped by hand, right down to the finger print marks he uses to give the boy's faces character.

This isn't the only detail that leaps out from the screen. There's Daniel Eaton's sound design, perfectly encapsuled by the sound of Eviah's flip-flops on a polished tile floor as he treks a phone to the bathroom, scared to miss - but perhaps also to hear - a call. The water park, too, feels full of life and though this is essentially a two-hander, the other kids in the queue are shown to have a range of personalities.

Each character feels carefully drawn, even the slide attendant, whose body language suggests a sort of cool and studied boredom. The slide itself is a woosh of emotion, as Lotan gives us time to consider the internal turbulence being experienced by Eviah as the physical unknown of the slide mirrors the psychological unknown he is also facing.

Lotan carefully marries scenes at home with those at the water park so that one emphasises the other right up to the final poignant moment.