Abstract
The death of a parent is a highly stressful life event for a bereaved child. In this difficult time, the child not only loses one parent and experiences trauma, but also copes with the loss of the second parent as well because of a misunderstanding during the proceeding through the grief. Adults feel negative emotions, while little children don’t fully understand that their late parents will never come back.
“Snowmom” is a 2 minute animated short film focused on the themes of family, support, loss and grief. This film tells a story about a man and his son who are grieving the tragic loss of their mother and wife. When the boy builds a snowman that resembles his late mother, his father finally realizes that his boy is missing the parental attention and love. It's time for them both to move on. But how will they do it? And will they? How does it feel to deal with the loss of a loved one? How does the child deal with the loss? Do children and adults experience grief and loss differently? And, most importantly, can the boy and his father through the Snowmom say goodbye and move on?
Artist Statement
Angelina Dukhonina is a Russian artist currently living in Vancouver, Washington.
In Russia, she studied for two years at the Leninogorsk Art and Music Pedagogical College, and then studied in the northern capital, St. Petersburg, at the Film and Television University. After completing her sophomore year, she transferred to Pacific Northwest College of Arts to continue her studies and earn a Bachelor's Degree in Animated Arts.
Angelina is studying animation, illustration and storytelling as she wants to develop her own projects and create animated films. Angelina can work both with various traditional materials (pencils, pastels, charcoal, acrylic, watercolor, tempera, gouache, oil, etc.), and digital (Photoshop, TVPaint, Adobe After Effects, etc.).
Back in Russia, she created her first animated film "Following the Unknown" about a disabled boy who goes into the forest for mysterious lights and finds a forest creature. Besides that, finishing her bachelor's degree in PNCA, she made another animated short film, "Snowmom", that tells about a man and his son, who misses his passed away mother and builds a snowman, dressing it in mother's clothes.
In her free time, Angelina reads, writes stories, creates music, writes songs and plays musical instruments, such as piano, ukulele, guitar, drums, etc.