Domhnall Gleeson stars in this quiet, poignant, and amusing tale of a 40-something man in the throes of an overstimulated, energy poor life, who fantasizes about the beauty and joy he will find in retirement.
Filmmaker John Kelly has shared with AWN a detailed look into his award-winning short film, .Inspired by a panic attack, the quiet, thoughtful and amusing film “is a profound meditation on the gap between aspiration and reality, blending humor and poignancy to illuminate the choices that shape our later years.” As they say… “Mind the gap!”
In the film, Domhnall Gleeson stars as Ray, who lives an overstimulated, energy poor 40-something-year-old life.
He beats back his apathy with life by dreaming of how wonderful his life will be when he retires.He lays out a beautiful life for himself in his retirement plan, pursuing his curiosities, challenging his limiting beliefs, embracing fear, beauty, even the complexities of wine culture.Ray will check off every box on every list for every interest he ever even half-thought about.
He will discover what he loves (Italian red wine), what he hates (camping).He will grow and learn and change rapidly.It’s beautiful and it’s messy and achingly relatable.
But Ray is forgetting something.The one thing he treats as flippantly disposable will be the single most rapidly depleting resource of his future self: his healthy-ish, agile enough 40-something-year-old body.Also, actual retirement time is not endless but guaranteed to be finite.
Enjoy the teaser trailer: The 7:17 2D film is directed by Kelly, who also wrote the film with co-writer Tara Lawall.Julie Murnaghan served as producer; Andrew Freedman was the associate producer.Marah Curran and Eamonn O’Neill handled the animation.
The film has had a successful festival run since it was completed in June 2024, including wins of both the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at SXSW 2025, as well as wins for Best Animated Short at the Bali International Film Festival and the Best of the Festival Award at Palm Springs International Shortfest.The film has qualified for the 2026 Oscars.According to Kelly, the basic idea for the film popped into his head during a mild panic attack during a short-haul flight.
“It was the kind of existential crisis that silently hits a 43-year-old man when he realizes how many flagged emails he has.This was the jumping off point, and the film took shape as a sort of list, indexing various dreams and fears my co-writer Tara Lawall and I have had (and dreams and fears we imagine other people might have).” The film’s more minimal style makes excellent use of many nuanced, subtle gestures, all perfectly timed, to push the comedy as well as reflective moments.With over 100 shots, Kelly notes “luxuries like lighting effects were simply off the table because we wanted to get it done on time.” He goes on to explain, “Marah Curran and Eamonn O’Neill animated everything, and they pulled our character Ray’s performance back to the bare minimum.
Both are wildly talented in every conceivable type of 2D animation, but we knew that an overall stylistic simplicity would better suit the tone of this story than anything with too much executional flair.” He continues, “In terms of visual style, my former life as a graphic designer had an impact on my approach.Burning influences include John Wilson and Lance Oppenheim’s documentaries, Chris Ware’s illustration, and Roy Andersson’s film work, alongside too many others.Broadly speaking their work has a happy/sad tone which I love, and all do a lot with a little, something I was trying for with this film.” We noted Kelly co-wrote and directed the film.
He also edited it.“I edited the film myself and this was one of my favorite parts of the process,” he shares.“It was also one of my least favorite: all moments of abject despair on this film happened in front of Adobe Premiere.
I gave up on the edit a good few times, not wanting to look at it for weeks, questioning the entire thing.Questioning my career.” Ah, the artistic process… we’ve all been there.But adding John Carroll Kirby’s “Walking Through A House Where A Family Once Lived” as a temp track unlocked something for Kelly, a gentle, or maybe not so gentle nudge of sorts, providing that spark to help him complete the film.
“It’s a powerful piece of instrumental music - a melancholic loop that evolves beautifully over the course of six minutes,” he says.“I asked John if he’d prefer to re-record the music track to the film’s length and he didn’t think he’d be able to capture the performance the same way, and he kindly let us license it as is.He says himself it’s not a perfect recording - created in lockdown on a friend’s piano I think - and you can hear doors slamming in the background.
That sound quality however… the acoustics of the room, and how it was recorded, is what makes it so unique.The track became a sort of emotional high-water mark for us to aim for with all other aspects of the film.” Asked what he hopes audiences come away with after watching his film, Kelly says, “In the last while, I’ve developed an unhealthy obsession with Letterboxd reviews of our film.I check it daily to see if there are any new ones.
Someone last week wasn’t a fan of the art style ‘but was moved by the screenplay.’ And yesterday a user called anaemicroyalty hearted it and said the film ‘LEFT ME GOOGLING HOW TO BE PRESENT IN THE MOMENT.’ This is a dream audience response.”
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
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