Play Fight!
Directed by Katrina Larner
Screening at The Brattle, May 6th, 2026
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Five little girls are jumping on the bed. One falls off and bumps her head. Mother carries her away and she doesn't come back. Four little girls keep jumping on the bed. One plays with fire and is burnt to a crisp. Three little girls are wondering who's next? They are bouncing off the walls and laughing at nothing. One discovers a truth deep within herself. Two little girls face off on the bed. Where did their friends go? What is there left to do?
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Questions from Chandler Pettigrew
The short film primarily uses sound to add texture instead of clear exposition. What was the reasoning behind the clearly stated line "I like girls" versus the more muffled dialogue in other parts of the short film? It’s never my instinct to use dialogue in my films, but I was really excited by the idea of transitioning from laughing to screaming and using vocalizations almost as another instrument, since I knew I wanted to have crazy music. The voices in the film were really going to stay abstracted like that, but when I started conceptualizing this specific girl’s death I was very interested by the idea of the secret and the words themselves spilling out of her. I wanted to be intentional about the specific phrasing she uses. I never really intended this to be a story about a young queer girl coming out to her friends, but more discovering a truth about herself that she may not fully understand. She is only able to vocalize it in a way that makes sense to her and her age and how much she knows about the world. It would be different if it was “I think I am a lesbian” because I don’t believe she would even know to define it as that yet. |
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From wearing the costume, drawing by herself, and not playing with another girl until she's coerced, isolation is a major theme of the film. How did you go about portraying isolation and other themes in the film?
This was one of the concepts that I really wanted to hold importance throughout the film, so I am very happy it is recognized! My original idea was to have the loner girl frantically trying to draw and diagram and record the activities that she is observing. It’s a social position that I have put myself in throughout adolescence and even in my adult life. In removing herself from the group, her sense of reality and observation twist and the things she sees may not be totally real; situations seem more intense than they are. When there are only two girls remaining, I wanted that final tickle battle to force her to reckon with her feelings of apathy towards the girls; she has to choose if she wants to fight to stay on the bed.
I wanted the characters and the situations to almost feel like stand-ins for real stories in the audience. The “Mom” is just everyone’s friend’s mom all at once. This film makes people tell me their crazy sleepover stories, which I love. I wanted the way each girl dies to be both specific and general. The girl who gets set on fire could be smoking and rebelling, self-harming, or keeping a secret that blows up in her face. Suspending the space, the characters, and the plot in this unreal quality brings almost anyone back to this brief but specific time in their life; everyone has felt lonely, everyone has felt a little crazy.
This was one of the concepts that I really wanted to hold importance throughout the film, so I am very happy it is recognized! My original idea was to have the loner girl frantically trying to draw and diagram and record the activities that she is observing. It’s a social position that I have put myself in throughout adolescence and even in my adult life. In removing herself from the group, her sense of reality and observation twist and the things she sees may not be totally real; situations seem more intense than they are. When there are only two girls remaining, I wanted that final tickle battle to force her to reckon with her feelings of apathy towards the girls; she has to choose if she wants to fight to stay on the bed.
I wanted the characters and the situations to almost feel like stand-ins for real stories in the audience. The “Mom” is just everyone’s friend’s mom all at once. This film makes people tell me their crazy sleepover stories, which I love. I wanted the way each girl dies to be both specific and general. The girl who gets set on fire could be smoking and rebelling, self-harming, or keeping a secret that blows up in her face. Suspending the space, the characters, and the plot in this unreal quality brings almost anyone back to this brief but specific time in their life; everyone has felt lonely, everyone has felt a little crazy.
Each girl in the film is distinct with their own colors, hairstyles, etc. How did you decide how to portray each girl?
I got really into thrifting pajamas the whole summer before I started the film. I was like “I would wear these out!” I got to thinking about why certain patterns are kind of reserved for pajamas, at least in adulthood. I love patterns and bright colors so I decided to assign each girl a color and pattern - kind of for my sanity so I could tell them apart. I wanted them to be basically identical because they all kind of homogenize in the haze of the sleepover. The very first thing I animated, though, was all of their individual jumps, and I felt like each of them kind of gained a personality through just that simple motion - it really informed a lot of choices I would make throughout the film for each of them. I also like that no matter how hard I tried, they each kind of came into their own. It made animating feel more magical.
I got really into thrifting pajamas the whole summer before I started the film. I was like “I would wear these out!” I got to thinking about why certain patterns are kind of reserved for pajamas, at least in adulthood. I love patterns and bright colors so I decided to assign each girl a color and pattern - kind of for my sanity so I could tell them apart. I wanted them to be basically identical because they all kind of homogenize in the haze of the sleepover. The very first thing I animated, though, was all of their individual jumps, and I felt like each of them kind of gained a personality through just that simple motion - it really informed a lot of choices I would make throughout the film for each of them. I also like that no matter how hard I tried, they each kind of came into their own. It made animating feel more magical.
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The film is beautifully animated in a surreal, whimsical sense that feels like a child's drawing. What scene was the hardest to draw and animate?
I really relied on and enjoyed creating all the loops of the girls - it creates this rhythm that builds that surreal vibe. I think the times when I break the loops and make something move from A to B was hard for me to think about. Especially since I almost never use references to animate, the moments when I needed to, like when she is in the forest and takes off her costume, felt clunky to animate based on real life. But I think that's what that scene needed, as a kind of grounding force. |
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During the process of making the film, what came first: the story or drawings/character designs?
It started simultaneously with image and story I think. A lot of the still drawings that appear in the film are my original sketches of the energy I wanted to capture. No character designs: just crazy toothy smiles, tangled hair, drawn in giant crayon. I knew initially I wanted to have a crazy violent sleepover, and in reading about sleepover games and tweenage girl rituals I was reminded of how dark the five little monkeys rhyme seemed to me. I always felt off-put by the fact that they go to the doctor and don’t come back. I used that rhyme as a framing device placeholder, and it just stuck.
It started simultaneously with image and story I think. A lot of the still drawings that appear in the film are my original sketches of the energy I wanted to capture. No character designs: just crazy toothy smiles, tangled hair, drawn in giant crayon. I knew initially I wanted to have a crazy violent sleepover, and in reading about sleepover games and tweenage girl rituals I was reminded of how dark the five little monkeys rhyme seemed to me. I always felt off-put by the fact that they go to the doctor and don’t come back. I used that rhyme as a framing device placeholder, and it just stuck.
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Katrina Larner is a multimedia animator from the SF bay area, california. she recently graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a degree in Film/Animation/Video.
Katrina's work spans time-based mediums. Bouncing between the moving image and drawing on bodies through her tattoo practice allows her to find a place to tell stories of in-between spaces and characters that are not quite whole. She is interested in images that reflect the world and characters within it that, given time, grow and change from one state to the next. |
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