This boy seems not unlike other boys — he plays video games, he gets annoyed when his mom gets in his way, and he's fascinated by a gift she gives him in a large cardboard box — but as we find out at the end of this video short, there's more to him than we initially believe.
In the short film, which is based on a comic book strip by a Brazilian artist named Fabio Coala Cavalcanti, the boy opens up a box from his mother to find a small, excited puppy inside. The boy's joy, however, quickly turns to disgust when he realizes the dog only has three legs.
He tosses the pup aside to continue with his game. "Get lost!" he says, shoving him away.
Clearly not one to dwell on negative energy, the playful dog stumbles while he chases a ball around the room. He grows on the boy.
The film, called "The Present," was created by Jacob Frey and Markus Kranzler in 2014 as a graduation project while they were students at Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg in Ludwigsburg, Germany. It went on to win dozens of international award —59, as they count—in Canada, the U.S., Italy, Portugal, South Korea, and more.
And it didn't just land the filmmakers a ton of awards. Today, Frey works at Walt Disney Animation Studios and Kranzler at Pixar Animation Studios here in the Bay Area.
Enjoy the short, above, to see just why the video scored so many accolades.
