From Omeleto.
A young boy has a crush.
YUCK is used with permission from Unifrance. Learn more at https://unifrance.org/festivals-et-marches/1275/mymetastories/2025.
Directed by Loic Espuche, this Oscar-nominated animated short is a funny and wisely perceptive portrait of the borderlands between childhood innocence and curious adolescence, rendered in charmingly colorful and expressive 2-D animation. On vacation with his family at a popular summer campsite, Leo has befriended the other children. They love to run around together, laughing at grown-ups kissing and calling it gross. But when Leo gets a crush on a fellow camper named Lucy, he realizes kissing someone may not be so gross after all.
How he reconciles his first crush with his childish perspective forms the spine of this warm, delicately told narrative. Its lines are simple and evocative and its colors are vivid like a tropical summer, but it has one almost magical motif: people’s lips glow with a pink glitter shimmer when they want to kiss someone. It’s an effective visual touch and quite charming, though when Leo’s lips start to glow, he’s horrified and tries to keep it secret, glowering in anger sometimes or shrinking in embarrassment in others.
But as his crush develops, Leo comes to reconcile and even accept this change, especially as he realizes the need to give and receive affection encompasses everyone. Part of the film’s emotional intelligence is how it captures Leo’s bewilderment at growing up with gentle humor and wry relatability, as well as the way children interpret and see the world of adults, understanding some things but overconfidently misinterpreting others, often to comical effect. But in capturing how Leo’s understanding of the world expands and grows with his first crush, YUCK is a rare, touching film that captures the tenderness and toughness of late childhood — and how we take our first dreamlike steps towards adulthood with innocence, uncertainty and excitement.
In partnership with Unifrance, Omeleto presents a selection of short films from this year’s "MyMetaStories" festival, a one-of-a-kind event dedicated to showcasing European cinema to emerging audiences, through innovative distribution methods that go beyond traditional film festivals. Available online until November 2, MyMetaStories offers a dual experience: an international video-on-demand film event and a dedicated universe within Minecraft, with its own games and environments. Film distribution evolves with technology, but what remains constant is the artistic vision, depth of storytelling and fearlessness that characterizes the best of European cinema, nurtured by an enduring and passionate film culture.
