December 6th, 2023 
Jackson Murphy 
Animation Scoop first profiled Starling as part of a 2023 Tribeca Film Festival preview piece earlier this year. It ended-up winning at the fest, sending it on a major trajectory for this awards season. Director Mitra Shahidi describes the emotion and power behind this short about parents remembering their daughter on her birthday. (This Animation Scoop Interview was conducted as an Email Q&A and was edited for length and clarity.)
Jackson Murphy: How was the Tribeca Film Festival experience, including the awards win?
Mitra Shahidi: It was our World Premiere, so all of this was very new to us. Our wonderful producer Jessica Heidt and I traveled together to attend, joined by our incredible VFX supervisor Kristoffer Landes and brilliant animator Jakub Bednarz. My family came along as well, and we brought my five month old baby at the time. Seeing the movie on the big screen and hearing the audience’s reaction was very emotional for me. I didn’t realize until that moment how much what you make matters, and there are people who connect with it in ways you never even thought about while making a movie. The win was a total surprise. I am very grateful to the jury for choosing our movie as the winner. It set us up for a whole year of excitement. I am very grateful for the wonderful Tribeca staff that supported us along the way in the festival.
JM: What have you learned about the power of a shooting star?
MS: The shooting star for me represents everlasting love and a strong will of life. Starling is bright, beautiful, full of energy and very spirited. It reminds me of my friend, and is a tribute to the people I loved and lost. She will stop at nothing to get home, and her spirit lives on shining forever, felt by those she left on Earth.
JM: How did you want to balance the lighthearted and more dramatic/emotional tones?
MS: I wanted to make a film that has both tastes of life as we know it. The fun and play of childhood in a colorful city like Istanbul, and the sadness of not being able to be with your loved ones in a way you really really want to. The Starling character is cute and charming, so that naturally gave way to the more playful tone, while the topic in and of itself is very heavy. I used a lot of restraint in the acting of the parents and Starling when they are in the same room, to create the feelings of longing and loss that I was feeling, without stepping into an area I don’t know about. I wanted to hold space for the joy of life and the reality of loss while finding the hope within it.
JM: How did you come-up with the path for the star spirit to reach her parents?
MS: I lived in Istanbul all my life. The street depicted is inspired by the streets that I know very well with all the colors and sounds. I created a path starting from a corner store similar to the one I shopped from as a kid, the street foods, the fruit stand, the florist, treating all these areas as a playground for Starling. After she realizes her time is limited, the fun is dialed way down and is replaced by urgency along with lots of hurdles, all authentic to the experience of living in Istanbul. I wanted it to feel like a nightmare in which you keep reaching towards something but the target keeps moving away.
Mitra Shahid
MS: That is all thanks to our incredible Director of Photography, Compositor AND Composer (yes, three whole jobs!) Andrew Jimenez. He created a whole system for how the glow would look and develop over the course of the movie. I think he said it consists of 10 layers! He also made it so that when she is fully invisible, WE can still see her by seamlessly moving the faded glow from one side of the face to another.
JM: How did you want to use the “Happy Birthday” song… the timing of it?
MS: The film begins with Happy Birthday supported with minor chords, and we don’t resolve it. Instead, we transition into the beautiful original score by Andrew Jimenez, which uses some traditional and modern Turkish instruments and supports the journey Starling is on. When we go into the apartment at the end of the movie, Happy Birthday starts again, but this time we resolve it at the moment she blows out the candle made for her. After the ghostly silence, the tune picks back up more instrumentally and with major chords, ending on a hopeful note when we see the star in the sky. All this was very intentional to carry the theme that she is still here with us and is celebrating her birthday.
JM: What did you want to say about the incredible instincts that parents have?
MS: I am a parent myself, and I just know things without being able to explain how. I just know when my daughter, who cannot speak yet, is awake in her crib when she should be asleep. I know she is up to something when there is no sound. I know that her tummy might be hurting even when she doesn’t cry about it. My own mother also can tell when my day wasn’t great or if I’m hiding something. I didn’t really want to say anything about that other than draw what I know to be truthful, which is that the family could just tell that she was in the room and which of the stars is their daughter.
JM: How has the response from people been so far, especially about the impact of love and loss?
MS: The response has been unbelievably moving and cathartic. People have been coming up to me after screenings or sending messages, sharing stories of their loved ones and what they took from the movie, and it has honestly been turning me into a puddle on the floor. I never knew how much impact a short film could have, to the point it changed something in me. Every frame of every film communicates something even beyond what is on the screen. If a film somehow makes even one person feel seen or helps process something, big or small, it’s worth making.
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