“When a curious child falls into a long-forgotten cave, she is confronted by a mysterious spirit and must decide whether the being is kindhearted or something more perilous.”

I was driven to create this film because of two reasons. Firstly, I grew up with classic Disney and Studio Ghibli animations and have been a huge fan ever since. Visually ‘The Brightest Star’ is like a love letter to my childhood. I am not as solid a traditional animator as them though, so I developed this interesting technique to combine 3D and 2D animations in a way that it would feel like the classical animations. It also pays tribute to Finnish folklore and nature by drawing inspiration from them. The second reason is that I needed to process the difficult emotions dealing with the loss of a loved one. The question “what happens after we die?” is a scary one, and it may be comforting to imagine that we won’t have to face it alone.