#If anything happens i love you movie#

I feel like the film is very emotional and it has a lot of depth. But because the Animated Short process is usually a positive, upbeat experience, were you able to find moments of positivity in making something as serious as this? We wanted to create an elegy for these parents who have dealt with that grief that no one should have to go through. These things that are articles – they become intimate and real, and you can get inside the emotion of it. And that’s one of the powerful tools of storytelling. But when your child dies, you bury them in your heart.” We’ve met a lot of parents who’ve lost children to gun violence, and we admire their courage and we want to see their grief and acknowledge their pain.

#If anything happens i love you movie#

We had this proverb on our corkboard where we built the movie which was, “When your parents die, you bury them in the ground. It’s just something that has happened all too frequently, and it’s such a stain, I think, on our country. One of the reasons why Michael and I made this film was we really wanted to honor parents who lost kids to gun violence. That was such an unthinkable, horrific, unimaginable moment in our country’s life, and it just kept happening. Michael Govier (left) and Will McCormack WM: Yes. A lot of little ones lost their lives.” Did those emotions and feelings (and that news) stay with you and made you want to make this short? And I remember coming back for lunch and going to science class and my science teacher came in and said, “Just got some horrible news. JM: When I was in 9th Grade, I was at school on the day of the Sandy Hook tragedy. Will McCormack: It’s bittersweet because I love film festivals: meeting other filmmakers and seeing all the films and seeing the towns. And we all wanted to go to Woodstock, but it wasn’t meant to be this year. But everything is virtual – we didn’t get to go and participate with that community. MG: We submitted and did a little Q&A for them. What was your direct involvement with them? JM: One of them is near me, the Woodstock Film Festival. Will and I went to the premiere in Omaha, and that was the last one Will and I were both physically present at. But there’s only been a handful of live ones, and some of them have Drive-Ins, and some of them were actually live before the pandemic started in March.

And our main goal was to play in every state, so we submitted to everything we could because we wanted this film to be seen by everyone. Our goal was to go and see the country – see the world – and bring this film everywhere.

How does that feel, and were most of them virtual fests? Jackson Murphy: This has been shown at 33 Festivals this year (at least that’s how many are on the short’s website).

The two discuss their intentions and emotions behind the short, which is about the grieving parents of a child who died in a school shooting. The first is If Anything Happens, I Love You, directed by Michael Govier and Will McCormack. Netflix is debuting three new animated short films over the next month and a half that they will also be putting up for major awards consideration.