dancing through the night
by Douglas Messerli
Niq Ducote (screenwriter, director, and animator) Until Morning / 2025 [1.45
minutes]
In less than two minutes, a business man and a high-rise
constructor worker return home and transform themselves into a 1960s-style
black man with an afro and a long-haired Italianate Romeo as they both head out
to Club 55.
For a
moment or two, they wow all the girls on the dance floor before accidently
bumping into one another when they have eyes for no one else. Before we know it
the two follow the groovy beat of the music (composed by Etia Farmiga) as they
dance up a storm, falling in love, and kissing each other on the spot.
Director/animator Niq Ducote, a product of CalArts, startingly
transforms them into abstract animated beings of their digital birth born from
the embryo though which they return before transforming back into the representations
of youthful men curled up together in bed.
Ducote
thanks animators Celine Hung, Peregrine Popp, Genevieve Funes, Grace Thackarey,
Mirabelle Lapenna, Munjila Mojlish, Mariana Guevara Vásquez, and Aphena Sov for
their help with secondary groovy beat dancers.
This short
gay work is another example of just how remarkably fun animation has truly
become.
Los Angeles, October 21, 2025
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October
2025).
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