The Kite

The Kite is an emotional animation which focuses on the relationship between a young boy and his grandfather. Martin uses his crafted animation style to sensitively illustrate how none of us are here forever, but also shows that death doesn’t mean the end of our journey and he does this in the symbolism of a kite.

The film follows the characters, who are made of hand crafted paper layers which get thinner as they age. The boy has many of these layers but as he visits his grandfather and they fly the kite together, his grandfather loses more and more of his layers, eventually the wind softly blows him away and takes him up to the sky.

Martin's sensitive portrayal of loss combined with his meticulous stop motion animation, resulted in The Kite winning over 60 international awards, selected for the semifinals of the Student Academy Awards and exhibited in the Film Collection of MoMA.