Once in a Body, an Oil-Painted Animation That Follows an Unfamiliar Presence Inside the Body into Two Sisters’ Memories

Once in a Body is a 2025 Colombian animated short directed by María Cristina Pérez González. It follows a woman confronting a strange being within her while attempting to reconcile with her sister ove

《Once in a Body》 is an animated short about a woman who feels that an unfamiliar presence lives inside her body and tries to reconcile with her sister, from whom she became estranged after an incident during adolescence. The process of tracing the experiences the two shared through their bodies becomes the narrative axis that leads the protagonist to confront the presence within herself. Its Spanish original title is *Una vez en un cuerpo*, and it is a 10-minute work produced in 2025.

Drawing Memories Left in the Body

Director María Cristina Pérez González explores the relationship between bodily experience and identity through images drawn directly on paper and the texture of paint. The animation’s constantly transforming imagery visually pushes the idea that memories and emotions cannot be reduced to fixed explanations. The work’s central themes are the social gaze imposed on women’s bodies as they grow up, and the traces that gaze leaves on their self-image and relationships with others.

A Short Film Eligible for the 2027 Academy Awards

The film was presented as having fulfilled one of the pathways to eligibility for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film: a festival award, theatrical release, or Student Academy Award. It was produced by Pez Dorado Animaciones and Cartuna, with distribution handled by Miyu Distribution. The official distribution page classifies the work as a drama about family, the body, and emotion, made using paper drawing and painting techniques.