From Omeleto.
A father and son join a race.
SIERRA is used with permission from Unifrance. Learn more at https://unifrance.org/festivals-et-marches/1275/mymetastories/2025.
Directed by Sander Joon, this Oscar-shortlisted animated short — the first ever from Estonia to achieve that honor — transforms a childhood memory into a surreal, emotionally charged fable about fathers, sons, ambitions and expectations. Blending dry humor, pathos, and striking visual imagination, it explores how love can warp under the weight of rigid expectations, molding children through the desire and withholding of approval.
The narrative follows a rally-obsessed father who drags his disinterested son into his world of racing. When the boy resists, the narrative slips into magical realism: he literally turns into a tire — an absurd yet devastating image of being consumed by another’s drive that captures how parental dreams and self-absorption can distort a child’s sense of self.
Visually, Joon’s stylized 3D animation mimics the warmth of paper cutouts, while he cleverly incorporates footage from a 1980 stop-motion racing film made by his own father. This layering turns Sierra into a meta-conversation between generations, a cinematic dialogue about legacy, influence, and the inherited patterns we both cherish and resist. Though it features very little spoken dialogue, its pastel landscapes, hypnotic geometry, and pulsing electronic score create a dreamlike rhythm that oscillates between whimsy and melancholy.
The absurdist humor — a mustache flying off mid-race, cars looping through impossible space — only sharpens as the son transforms into a tire and finds himself in a tenuous, even dangerous situation. But ultimately, it forces the family into a confrontation, looking at how pressure and inattention have warped the fabric of the family unit. But it is never too late to reset course, as evidenced in an ending that touches upon the complicated tenderness between fathers and sons. Even when love takes the wrong form, understanding can still close the loop.
In partnership with Unifrance and its MyMetaStories festival, Omeleto presents a curated selection of films that embody fearless storytelling, artistic depth and the enduring elegance of French cinema.
