Pixar animators spent 5 years making this dark cowboy film about forgiveness

Two Pixar animators have released a short film exploring themes of loss, self-forgiveness and closure and, unsurprisingly, it is enthralling. 

The Californian animation powerhouse is known to encourage its people to take up side projects, and it feels logical that some of best animators in the world would put their spare time into a piece of animation rather than, say, building a summer house, or mastering the saxophone.

Borrowed Time is the work of Lou Hamou-Lhadj and Andrew Coats, who've known each other since college, and is a damn sight darker than what the chaps do in their day job. "A goal for us was to make something that kind of contested the notion of animation being a genre, and one for children specifically,” explains Hamou-Lhadj. “We really wanted to make something that was a little bit more adult in the thematic choices, and show that animation could be a medium to tell any sort of story.”

Five years in the making, the film follows the story of a Sheriff revisiting the site of a childhood trauma where he has to face up to a guilt that's been consuming him for years. “We wanted to take the stereotype of the strong, physical cowboy that doesn’t wear their emotions on their sleeve and see what it would look like to take that to a place that’s deeper and more emotional to him,” says Coats in their making-of video.

We really can't give much more away without spoiling things too much, so check it out:

Good, innit?

If you're curious for me, here's a quick look at its making: