Mike Sobi [Sobieski] | Waiting / 2019 [animated film]

love is rejuvenating

by Douglas Messerli

 

Lee Witz, Catherine Ren, and Lukas Anderson (animators), Mike Sobi [Sobieski] (screenwriter and director) Waiting / 2019 [5 minutes] [animated film]

 

 Even before the remarkable animated work Pancakes (2023), Mike Sobieski was producing wonderful gay animations, as his 2019 film Waiting reveals.

    It’s New Year’s Eve and both of his gay characters, Nick (Hao Fengo) and Matt (Ryan Masson) are forced to work for the evening, Nick in the nightclub as a pianist at The Palace, while Matt works as a waiter at Cathy’s, a local diner.

   Even though Nick was supposed to get off work at one, is forced to hang on “looping,” as he describes it, the song Ald Lang Syne. He comes home, cake in hand, but so exhausted he can hardly keep standing. He calls Matt, who’s still working, telling him of his exhaustion. Matt even suggests that if he needs sleep, they can celebrate in the next day.

     But Nick seems determined to stay up, unable, however, to even stand up, and eventually falling into the cake box and into the bed.

    Matt calls back reporting that he’s about to finally get off: “Sorry, sorry, I just needed to talk to somebody. This shift is coming straight from hell.”

       But by this time, he can already hear Nick’s snores.

      Finally, Matt returns home to the Bijou where they live, only to discover that Nick has reawakened and decorated the place, put out the cake, and is waiting with champagne. “You stayed up?” he responds, in some amazement.

   “You sound surprised,” says Nick, as the two men kiss, and begin they little early morning celebration.

      The phone rings.

      “They have another favor to ask?” queries Matt.

      Nick simply tosses the phone away, answering “Probably,” as the two toast and kiss the New Year in.

      Sobieski’s animated works are so real and simple, presenting the gay world in real-life events, that you can’t help but love them.

 

Los Angeles, July 5, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2026).