Animated Short: Ugly

A broken simulated short film about kindness and coexistence. Watch Ugly, an animted short by Nikita Diakur.

When watching a film as unique as ‘Ugly’, it is logical to wonder about the genesis of such a project. Ironically, for Diakur, it came from a place of having no ideas. After a year of searching for the perfect film concept, he was desperate for inspiration and took a literal approach by typing exactly what he was looking for into Google: “inspiration”. Web pages of inspirational quotes popped up and as Diakur traveled down this internet wormhole, he stumbled upon a video that told the story of an ugly cat that despite its appearance and mistreatment, always offered affection to others. Diakur admits that the inspirational message of the video “somehow got lost in the intensely sentimental narration, which I found quite interesting. It was not the perfect film idea, but it was enough to get started.” As Diakur started, he used this ugly cat’s story as a foundation to reveal the theme ugly versus beautiful with an idiosyncratic approach that has just as much to say narratively, as it does stylistically.