An animated short exploring the most minute details of a Monarch wing, created from microscopic images at different levels of magnification.

The first dive-in of a Monarch butterfly wing revealing the intricate scale structure, the pigmented scales, fuzzy borders. The borders of the wing evoke the borders between countries, notably between Canada, US and Mexico. The animation was created manually by layering and hand-painting different microscopic images, including snapshots taken with an electron microscope. The soundscape contains recordings of the milkweeds in Ontario, Canada (where the monarch emerge from their cocoons), roars from immigration rallies in New York (as the monarch pass over the East Coast) and a track entitled “los gritos de México” - a layering of urban and rural echoes from Mexico (as the Monarch arrive in their hibernating sites in the forests of Michoacan).

Alexis Gambis | direction
Arnaud Martin | scientific advising
‍Orsolya Szantho | animation
Attilio Rigotti | animation
Andres Saldaña | sound design

Originally created as a standalone short film, screened at Imagine Science Film Festival NY. Later incorporated into the director's second feature, Son of Monarchs, which had its international premier at Sundance.

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