Cartoon Brew is putting the spotlight on animated short films that have qualified for the 2025 Oscars.
In this installment, we’re looking at Luki & the Lights from American filmmaker Toby Cochran. The short earned its Oscars qualification by winning the best animated short award at the Santa Fe International Film Festival.
Unfolding in an idyllic setting, Luki & the Lightstell the story of a robot child and his friends, who live a seemingly happy life. When Luki starts malfunctioning, robot doctors diagnose him with a very particular disease, which affects his motor functions and eats up his robot lights one by one. It is a dialogue-less heartfelt story about amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) disease, adapted from a character created by Dutch parents and teachers Sascha and Anjo Snijders. Anjo, who used Luki to explain his ALS condition to his children, passed away earlier this year, and this story brought to screen by Cochran and his team is a tribute to …