Kate Bush’s Little Shrew to play exclusively in cinemas nationwide

The beautiful short Little Shrew, written and directed by Kate Bush will play exclusively in cinemas alongside critically acclaimed World War II German resistance feature film, From Hilde, With Love.

Kate Bush’s Little Shrew – winner of Best Animation at the New York Short Animation Festival –  focuses on a shrew who searches for Hope as she makes her way across a bombed-out city. Blissfully unaware of the dangers surrounding her, she journeys through a war-torn Land of the Giants. Stunned and caught up in an explosion as the city is being bombed during a drone attack, she recovers and manages to continue her search for Hope…

The animation is accompanied by the song Snowflake, from Kate Bush’s 10th studio album 50 Words For Snow.

On her website, Bush wrote: “In 2022, with war breaking out in Ukraine, I decided I wanted to make an anti-war animation. In particular, I hoped to draw attention to the children caught up in war.

“I based the storyboard around the song, Snowflake, which was sung by my son when he was a child. I think his performance is extremely moving and although I‘d originally written the song to capture his beautiful descant voice before he entered adolescence, it has taken on a haunting new meaning within the context of this animation.

“The original track runs for over seven minutes, but as animations take a long time to make, it made a lot of sense to shorten it to three or four minutes. I was concerned that the song might lose something by being edited so intensely but actually it’s held up pretty well.”

Fascinating Process

She continues: “I got in touch with the illustrator, the very talented Jim Kay, but I thought he might not be interested or would be too busy working on other projects. So I was very excited when he said that he would like to be involved, and that he would have time before starting his next project. We worked pretty intensely for a few months and completed about half of the story board before both Jim and I had to move on to our separate projects.

“The next stage was to find the right animation company. Through a friend, the animation company Inkubus was recommended.

“Gayle [Martin] and Lorenzo [Cenci Di Bello] have been the main liaisons in the company and they suggested Nicolette [Van Gendt] as Little Shrew’s animator.

“I feel very lucky to have worked with them all and especially this wonderful and extraordinary animator who has brought Little Shrew to life, with the tenderness that her character deserved.

“Working on this has been a fascinating process. I love being creative in the visual medium as well as in audio.”

For the full story behind Little Shrew, click here

From Hilde, With Love tells the true story of Hilde Coppi. In Berlin 1942, a shy Hilde falls in love with Hans and gradually finds her place in the resistance group that would come to be known as the “Red Orchestra”.

Little Shrew will play before From Hilde, With Love in all Picturehouse and other select cinemas on general release from 27 June.

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