Bippy the Little Robot, an animated film short by Glenna Burmer, has taken home two awards recently — Best Original Score and Best Original Animation Style – from the online film festival, Plot Twist.
Plot Twist celebrates filmmakers who use the element of surprise to distinguish and elevate their productions. Centered in Sao Paulo, Brazil, whose burgeoning cinematic scene has reshaped Latin American filmmaking, the festival recognizes films that use narrative, plot or other elements to surprise and astonish.
Plot Twist jurors selected Bippy for Best Original Score in a category that attracted eight other nominations from producers in the US, UK, Brazil and Austria. Also selected as the winner for Best Original Animation Style, Bippy competed against six other films from the Czech Republic, Canada, US, Netherlands and Panama.
The story of Bippy takes place in the future long after humans are annihilated; all that remains are broken and forgotten machines. One of these machines, Bippy, a perky little trashcan, sets out with his android-cat sidekick on a journey to find other survivors.
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, 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.
A classical composer and award-winning concert and animated-film producer in Seattle, Burmer’s music and original voice create compelling stories that resonate with audiences worldwide. For the past three films, Burmer has collaborated 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, including the 2021 Seattle Filmmaker Award, and was selected to tour Great Britain in 2022. In 2026, Burmer released her third film, Yokaitopia, currently making the rounds of international film festivals.