Wild Summon

Wild Summon is a 2023 animated short film directed by the filmmaking duo Karni Arieli and Saul Freed, also known as 'Karni & Saul'. The 14-minute eco-film narrated by British singer Marianne Faithfull depicts the life of a female salmon, in the human form of a free diver. Premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or for Best Short Film, Wild Summon has been featured in a number of international film festivals, including the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and the Raindance Film Festival, where it won an award for Best Short Film. In January 2024, filmmakers Adam McKay, Kevin Messick, Guy Nattiv and Jaime Ray Newman came aboard as executive producers of the film.

On December 21st 2023, the film was shortlisted for the 96th Academy Awards in the category of Best Animated Short Film.

Plot
A 'human' female salmon is laying on the river shore, exhausted. Her eggs have been released and are floating on the river bank: they are almost ready to hatch. One of the newborn salmons, a female, commences her perilous journey down the river and in the open sea. Once grown, she must swim back across the ocean, to return to her birth place, upriver. Whether it's in the shape of natural predators or man-made threats, many are the obstacles that get in her way. Yet, her courage, her resilience and a magical life force will guide her to the exact same spot where she was born.

Production
The film received funding from the British Film Institute and was made with a combination of live footage and 3D computer animation over the course of two years. The live footage was shot in Iceland during the pandemic, and the computer animation, produced by the Bristol-based Sulkybunny Studio, was made primarily with the Autodesk Maya, Arnold and SythnEyes softwares, and the compositing was done using Adobe After Effects.

Reception
Since its release, the film has been selected in various festivals around the world: