"Little Shrew (Snowflake)" An Animation by Kate Bush

Kate Bush released a beautiful animated video today. She tells the story at her site:

"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.

I knew I wanted the featured character to be a child caught up in war, so I made a very rough, off the cuff story board.

Although I’d initially thought to make the character a human child – a little girl – I settled on the idea of a Caucasian pygmy shrew (Ukrainian shrew): a tiny, fragile little creature. I felt that people might have more empathy for a vulnerable little animal than a human…

This little shrew would take a journey on a moonlit, winter’s night through a war-torn city, initially unaware of what was going on around her in this land of the giants. She can sense that she’s being called by a kind of spiritual presence… HOPE.

She starts to search for HOPE. Sometimes hope is all there is to hang on to."

The wonderful story of the artist and animation team continues on her site here.

Kate concludes:

"There’s not meant to be an exclusive focus on the war in Ukraine, but it was that war that instigated the making of this animation. All wars leave horrific scars: ruined lives, families ripped apart, life-changing injuries, trauma and loss on a massive scale – but it’s the children who suffer the most in so many ways. Their past, present and future melt away into fear and uncertainty.

I would like to ask that if you watch the animation, please make a donation to War Child, or to another charity that aids children in war.

Even a tiny donation will help enormously. War can be an unimaginable horror for a child.

You could be hope for that child caught up in war. You could make a real difference.

Thank you for supporting this project,

Kate"

https://www.warchild.org.uk/
https://www.katebush.com/