Pixar has released two Pixar SparkShorts films — Float and Wind — on YouTube, making them widely available to more people around the world. Both films come from Asian filmmakers and feature the story of Asian characters.
Float is a 7-minute film by Filipino-Ameican director Bobby Alcid Rubio. It tells the story of a father who discovers his son’s ability to levitate. Scared of what their neighbors might say about his son, he attempts to hide him from the outside world.
In an interview after the film’s initial release, Rubio explained that the film took inspiration from his own journey of raising his son Alex, who is on the autism spectrum.
Check out Float here:
Wind, on the other hand, is a film from Edwin Wooyoung Chang. It’s about a young Korean boy and his grandmother who try to find their way out of a chasm.
Chang explained in a 2019- interview that the 9-minute film is inspired by his grandmother. According to him, she was a single mother who took care of her kids and sent them to the U.S. for them to live a new life.
Watch Wind below:
The release of the two short films is Pixar’s way of showing solidarity with the Asian and Pacific Islander Communities. This is in light of the recent increase of hate crimes against Asians and Asian-Americans in the US recently.
According to Pixar, the decision to make the two films widely available is “in celebration of what stories that feature Asian characters can do to promote inclusion everywhere.”
Float and Wind are available for streaming on YouTube for a limited time only.
Homestream image is screenshot from the official video
