Please, Drawing the Desire to Be Loved in 9 Minutes of Stop-Motion

Please is a stop-motion short by Anna Mantzaris that links city dwellers seeking affection and validation through darkly comic, tender vignettes. Its Nordisk Panorama award qualified it for considerat

Anna Mantzaris’s 9-minute stop-motion short Please is a dark comedy that strings together multiple scenes of city dwellers thirsting for affection and recognition. From Winston, a lonely CEO, to Liv, who is prone to fleeing dates, the characters want relationships yet cannot hide their anxieties and desires. It was released in Sweden on November 25, 2026, and secured eligibility for consideration in the Animated Short Film category at the 99th Academy Awards by winning the Best Nordic Short award at the Nordisk Panorama Film Festival. This does not mean a nomination is confirmed; it means the film is eligible to be submitted as a contender.

A Comic Portrait of People Seeking Connection

The work is closer to a loosely interconnected collection of vignettes than to a single plot. Longing for the approval of others, Winston finds refuge in a free-spirited religious group, while a priest gives in to his emotions during Mass. A cowboy in the woods, a man in a suit crying in a supermarket, and a woman obsessed with dogs also inhabit the same city. Each scene is strange and funny, but together they reveal the desperation of people who struggle to form relationships.

Emotions We Were Taught to Hide

What Please holds onto is the reluctance to appear “needy” in environments that emphasize restraint and self-management. The fact that we want intimacy is easily seen as dependence or failure, but the film does not treat that feeling as a flaw that needs to be corrected. Rather than mocking the characters, the awkwardness of the comedy shows that the desire to be loved can emerge in unfamiliar and absurd ways for anyone.

Subtle Expressions on Handcrafted Figures

Mantzaris is known for stop-motion using felt-textured puppets, and the physical qualities of the puppets and sets play an important role in this work as well. Unlike smooth digital images, the visible fuzz and gestures that seem fixed yet shift ever so slightly make the characters’ hesitation feel more immediate. Stellan Skarsgård, Molly Nilsson, Ika Nord, Jonatan Unge, and Johan Edström contributed voice performances.