Pixar’s Purl is a Sparkshots short film featuring an animated ball of yarn trying to fit in at her new job in an all-male startup company called B.R.O.. Via Short of the Week:
Though Pixar have become somewhat synonymous in the world of animated shorts, finding these films online is more of a rarity, than a common occurrence. However, this all looks to change with their latest program SparkShorts, a series of films designed to discover new storytellers, explore new storytelling techniques, and experiment with new production workflows, that all look set to be released online. Kicking off this series, is Kristen Lester’s Purl, a deceptively cute tale of toxic masculinity in the workplace.
Set in the high-powered world of B.R.O capital, Purl follows its titular central character as she goes to work in a male-dominated office and finds herself struggling to fit in. A story centred around themes of belonging and understanding, Purl is left with a tough decision – change her ways to fit in or carry on being herself and face a life of loneliness and isolation at work. The story was obviously a personal one for writer/director Lester, as she reveals in this Meet the Filmmakers video:
“It’s based on my experience being in animation”, says Lester, “my first job, I was like the only woman in the room and so in order to do the thing that I loved, I sort of became one of the guys. Then, I came to Pixar and I started to work on teams with women for the first time and that actually made me realise how much of the female aspect of myself I had sort of buried and left behind”.