After months of appearing in film festivals around the world – both in-person and virtually — Bippy the Little Robot finally makes its Seattle premiere.
The premiere screening will take place Saturday, Sept. 20, at 7 p.m. as part of the 28th annual Local Sightings Film Festival presented by the Northwest Film Forum. Screening location is on Capitol Hill at the Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave. Purchase tickets here.
Bippy joins six other short films by Northwest filmmakers in a program called Echoes of the Future. The featured sci-fi films take place in the near future, showcasing time travel, truth-telling devices and an assortment of gadgets and gizmos.
A still from Bippy, left, was selected by festival organizers to be the signature artwork for the Echoes of the Future program.
The 10-day Local Sightings Film Festival, which runs Sept. 19-28, showcases more than 60 films from creative communities throughout the Pacific Northwest. The 2025 festival spotlights a selection of curated short film programs and feature films. Besides championing emerging and established talent, the festival supports the regional film industry and promotes diverse media as a critical tool for public engagement.
The story of Bippy the Little Robot
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 60 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.