An elderly photographer studies a series of photographs, attempting to reconnect the broken thread of memory with the people they depict, who they were, how they lived, and where they are now. Although the film has a central character, it is not the story of his life, nor of his memories. Instead, it is a quiet requiem for a bygone era and for those who embodied it, a reflection on the futility of trying to preserve people in memory as they truly were.
9 min 7 sNorway2026
Black Box
by Anton Dyakov
2D computer
Anton Dyakov (b. 1980, Kazakhstan) is a Russian animator and director. After a decade in advertising, he studied at SHAR Animation Studio School in Moscow. His student film Kostya (2012) screened at Annecy, and Vivat. Musketeers! (2017) won Annecy's Youth Award. BoxBallet (2020), a wordless tale of a boxer and a ballerina, was nominated for the 2022 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. After his anti-war short I'm Burning! (2022), Russian state funders rejected his later projects. Now in exile in France, he directed Black Box (2025) for Trollfilm (Norway), it premiered in competition at Annecy 2026. His next film with Trollfilm, A Foreign Heart, has just received production support from the Norwegian Film Institute.
- animation
- Anton Dyakov
- production
- Claus Gladyszak
- screenwriter
- Anton Dyakov