From Omeleto.

A rabbit discovers another world.

WHERE RABBITS COME FROM is used with permission from Colin Ludvic Racicot. Learn more at https://instagram.com/colinludvic.

Directed and written by Colin Ludvic Racicot, this Oscar-longlisted animated short begins as a father-daughter pair of rabbits walk home at night to their apartment building, full of poverty and suspicious neighbors. The mother has mysteriously disappeared, and the father is doing his best to provide a sense of security to his daughter. But it is hard, especially in their cold dystopian world, painted in spooky, luminous animation full of muted shadows and ghostly light.

But one night, the father is whisked away, only to find himself in an entirely different reality. These different realities are beautifully conveyed through animation’s particular ability to generate emotion through visuals, shifting to a warmer, brighter and more colorful register. The father wants to share his discovery with his daughter, but he is reported to the authorities for bringing forbidden material into the dystopian rabbit world. From there, the film takes a darker tone, aided by an especially evocative score that nimbly traverses the rabbit family’s travails, making for perilous emotional twists and turns.

Imaginative, clever and touching, WHERE RABBITS COME FROM reveals itself to have a clever premise as it unfurls, one that is charming at first glance but also plays an important role in the rabbits’ adventures. As it traces the journeys of the rabbit family in the face of impassive, cruel authoritarianism, it also reveals a bravura sense of ambition in its world-building and a powerful sense of moral engagement, building up to a lyrical, memorable ending. It also makes the case for wonder, magic and joy as powerful weapons, ones needed against a bleak world determined to stamp out freedom and possibility in the name of control and domination.