only special. just special. impressive for idea, touching for story, great for final. and difficult for define. because all is well known and the film could be another manifesto for a noble cause. but it becomes, scene by scene, little more. the poetry, the voice , the references to situations from every day does it a good point of reflection. about small , poor people and realities. about love. about different and subtle form of revenge. nothing complicated. or new. an idea. work. puppets. and one of stories becoming great on the screen against the insignificant fact to be close near you in real life. so, few numbers. and Zero.

I saw this with my 10-year old son In spite of the stop motion animation with wool balls (!!!) which could have lent itself to lack of emotional expression, he was so taken and upset by the story that half way through he started to weep like a fountain and refused to proceed viewing But he was intrigued and impressed, he really WANTED to know that it ends well for zero So a few days later we went back to Amazon And watched the ending He was so happy that immediately called his older brothers asking them to watch - all rooted for Zero and found the story moving and beautifully told Well done!!! In the end what matters is a beautiful story well told, and the simplicity of the wool balls (DNA strands?) rather adds to the story

Zealous Creative is a LA based production company that makes ads, corporate videos and short films. The creative talent like the director of Zero hail from Australia.Zero is a stop motion animation with yarn puppets with a message of rigid social structures particularly that of caste and the Untouchables.The zero of our story is an untouchable. A nothing who will never rise from the bottom. He will always amount to zilch.At school his life is tormented because he has a zero stamped on his chest. Others have numbers from 1 to 10. A number 1 may just be a lowly cleaner but even that amounts to some kind of ranking denoting a status.Zero struggles through life and into adulthood but is determined to survive the system knowing that he will never beat the system. He meets a female Zero and suddenly feels his life has meaning.Even though their love is forbidden in such a society they persevere to make it through together.The film has nice simple but smooth animation with clear cut narration. I would like to have known more of this society like where do Zeros come from? I guess there is only so much you can show in a 10 minute short but it is a thoughtful film on social status discrimination.

I came in to this short film thinking it might have something to do with mathematics . My own memory from schooldays reminded me that " everything is based around maths " but for some strange reason it's not a subject that figures very often in cinematic subject matter . Off the top of my head only two films feature the theme , one being Darren Aronofsky's feature film debut PI and Ron Howard's Oscar winning A BEAUTIFUL MIND . As it stands ZERO doesn't need to join them in the cinematic maths box because it has nothing to do with mathematics and everything to do with social hierarchy The subtext is a bit too obvious but social structure is important - perhaps far too much - to the human race . It differs in some cultures . Despite not officially existing in the Indian sub-continent the Hindu caste system is one of the most rigid social structures on Earth . Nazi racial hierarchy - itself owing vague connections to Hinduism and Indo-Aryan culture - was an example of a social order with zero social mobility . On the opposite side of the idealogical fence communism had party hierarchy where someones standing in the party allowed them privileges such as state house , sate car and state shops where party members didn't have to queue all day unlike non party members . Not even a secular democracy can guarantee true meritocracy and often social class is a life sentence except for a gifted few This might be the problem of ZERO . I constantly found myself asking what this type of society was and wanted to learn more about but it's an animated short that appeals more to the heart than the head and being animated means the animation is everything . This shouldn't be taken as a criticism because I did find the woollen puppets impressive both as a concept and as characters and you really do feel for the characters and their predicaments even if you're equally aware you are being manipulated to a degree . Perhaps in a world where Pixar animation is becoming far overused a film studio might like to employ Christopher Kezelos and his puppet animation for a feature length family blockbuster . I'm sure with the right screenplay the results would be impressive