Bippy the Little Robot, the newest animated short film from Glenna Burmer, is going to Hollywood in April!
The inspirational animated tale of a perky little trashcan was named an Official Selection of the 2025 Beverly Hills Film Festival and will be screened in April at the famous TCL Chinese Theater, more commonly known as Grauman’s Chinese Theater — a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame. The festival runs April 1-6, 2025; the exact date and time of the Bippy screening will announced later.
The Beverly Hills Film Festival, which began in 2000, is considered one of the most exclusive and influential film festivals in existence. Held in the backyard of the entertainment capital of the world, the prestigious festival attracts more than 55,000 attendees each year.
During the festival, organizers offer a host of exciting red-carpet publicity events and VIP after-parties along with workshops, panel discussions and seminars. It’s an opportunity for emerging and established filmmakers to network and celebrate their craft at the very heart of the world’s most famous cinematic community.
Watch the Bippy trailer here.
The story of Bippy the Little Robot takes place in the future after humans are annihilated; all that remains are broken and forgotten machines. But the bleak landscape does not deter Bippy, a perky little trashcan, who sets out with his android-cat sidekick on a journey to find if other machines still exist.
In an abandoned music studio, the little robot discovers a broken-down piano where he improvises a jazz piece that awakens a pink toaster named Anna. In a swirling dance sequence using innovative motion capture, Anna and Bippy perform a dreamy pas de deux that personifies the beauty and resilience of the human spirit. As music fills the air, the future, once dismal, grows a little brighter.
This is the second animated film produced by Glenna Burmer in collaboration with Deep Sky & Imaginary Planet. The team’s first joint project, Nana korobi, Ya oki, completed in spring 2021, won more than 50 festival awards worldwide.
Unlike most films where the music is composed after filming ends, Burmer’s music drives the story. In her creative process, she envisions the storyline, composes the music to relay that narrative, and creates distinctive characters, then brings in an animation studio to visually translate the music’s style and atmosphere.
Deep Sky’s design/post-production work and Imaginary Planet’s 2D and 3D animation perfectly capture the story’s bleak post-apocalyptic world. The innovative motion graphics used in the dance sequence between Anna and Bippy, along with additional 2D and 3D animation, result in a digital montage that is unique in its scope and originality.