Apple Original Films in partnership with KCRW presented the BAFTA Award-winning Best Short Animation “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse,” in a live-to-screen special concert screening hosted by Wordless Music at Neuehouse in Los Angeles. The score, by award-winning composer Isobel Waller-Bridge, was performed by the renowned forty-piece Wordless Music Orchestra, conducted by Ryan McAdams.
“The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse,” based on the beloved book by Charlie Mackesy, celebrates the power of our shared humanity through a deeply moving story of four friends traveling together in the boy’s search for home. The film was released on Apple TV+ and the BBC (in the UK) on Christmas Day 2022, and has been hailed as a “stunning” (Awards Daily) film “translating the exquisite illustrations into hand-drawn animation” (Indiewire), that is “lovely, poignant, beautiful, moving” (TODAY). “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” won the BAFTA Award for Best British Short Animation, and was recently honored with an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film and seven Annie Awards nominations including Best Special Production.
The poignant journey follows the unlikely friendship of a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse traveling together in the boy’s search for home. The film, featuring Mackesy’s distinctive illustrations brought to life in full color with beautiful hand-drawn animation, stars Tom Hollander as The Mole, Idris Elba as The Fox, Gabriel Byrne as The Horse, and newcomer Jude Coward Nicoll as The Boy.
Starring: Tom Hollander, Idris Elba, Gabriel Byrne, and Jude Coward Nicoll
Produced By: Matthew Freud, Cara Speller, J.J. Abrams, and Hannah Minghella
Executive Produced By: Jony Ive and Woody Harrelson
Written By: Charlie Mackesy and Jon Croker
Original Score By: Isobel Waller-Bridge
Directed By: Charlie Mackesy and Peter Baynton