ANNECY FESTIVAL 2026 REVIEW! Death (John Sparkes) has a job to do. You know, ushering people into the next realm. The problem is, Death has a new apprentice, and his day isn’t going well. Little Death (Nami Annette Gillet) is a small, wide-eyed version of Death, learning the family trade, and their target today is a skier named Edgar. The plan? À la Wile E. Coyote, Death rolls a boulder into Edgar’s path and lets physics do the rest. But Little Death spots a wildflower and wanders off to admire it. By the time Death notices, Edgar has walked right past the drop zone. Death yanks the flower away and tosses it aside. Little Death just picks it back up.
It only gets worse from there. Death resets, tries a new trap, and gets the same result. Little Death loses focus, and Death’s patience wears down to nothing (the guy clearly needs therapy). He’s about ready to give up on his youthful apprentice.
Little Death sits with forest animals in a scene from A Little Death.
“Death has a job to do.”
A Little Death is based on Nicholas Gurewitch’s graphic novel, Notes on a Case of Melancholia, Or: A Little Death. Like the novel, directors Leto Meade and Jonathan Rockefeller capture the tender story that lies underneath this macabre tale. While death is about as dark a subject as you could approach, the filmmakers capture the whimsical nature of Death and his protégé, Little Death.
As someone who worked with old-school printers for decades, I am simply drawn to the cross-hatch style of animation that runs throughout the short. The filmmakers mix CG animation with actual linocut-printed backgrounds. The cross-hatch style comes from the old style of hand-carved printing plates, giving the film a natural feel of so-called “line-drawn” art. It’s quite effective in this tale.
In the end, one could say that Death has never been so cute. The free-flowing, whimsical nature of A Little Death shines through every frame as it tells the familiar story of a father trying to teach his child a basic life skill, even though the kid would rather go out and play. Heartfelt to the very end…yes, that end…
"…death is about as dark a subject as you could approach…"
