Shorts

'La Perra' Animation Short by Carla Melo Gampert: Three Reasons to Watch

Vassilis Kroustallis 11 December 2024

The Colombian animation short 'La Perra' (The Bitch) by Carla Melo Gampert was part of our Top Animation Shorts of 2023, and rightly so.

This is the first professional animation short by the Colombian author, who graduated from the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá and from the Film program at the Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires with her Annecy-premiered 'Por ahora un cuento'.

Her 2023 film 'La Perra', the story of a girl growing up and discovering her sexuality—amongst guilt and shame—travelled internationally to more than 150 festivals, becoming an Oscar-qualified film (San Francisco IFF, Chilemonos Festival, Bogoshorts), and eligible for the 2025 Academy Awards.

We wrote about 'La Perra' in 2023:

It outlines the path taken by many girls to discover, in the best cases, the wonderfulness of sexual discovery. But it is also a story of family issues, love, affection, growth, and reconciliation. With an elegant and dynamic visual layout made by hand drawn in ink and watercolors, Carla Melo Gampert offers us an intimate look at a taboo theme with magnificent scenes that create a powerful animated film. - Kropka, Zippy Frames

We here add three reasons to get this film an even more prominent showcase:

1:

It uses its beaks, long necks, and bird sound to the maximum effect; we don't just see the bird people, we overwhelmingly experience them in an always intense tenor.

2:

It has the best 'after sex' scene and its timeline (via a continuous pan to the right) we've experienced in an animation short film -and even beyond that

3:

It is unafraid to expose the shame women have toward their bodies as a result of internalized (familial and societal) pressure. It simply lays the situation out there -and makes it hard but necessary for its main character to fight and reconcile.