A Last Light Pictures Animated Short · Coming 2026

EMBER

One small light against the whole cold night.

On the first night of winter, the last coal of a lost fire and a freezing moth — two small dying things — spend each other lighting one fire that will only ever warm an audience of one.

Animated short 2:50 Score Martin Landh

The story

Two small dying things

It's the first night of winter, and it's snowing on a fire that's already lost. An old stone ring on a mountainside, drifted white — and in the middle of it, one coal the size of an egg: the last of the fire, the part that remembers being warm. Every snowflake that lands on him dies with a little hiss, and every hiss takes something. His cracks of light are going dark one at a time. Nobody is coming.

Then one more thing falls out of the snow — but this flake is beating. A moth, frozen half to death, who has spent her whole short life loving lights she couldn't have: the porch bulb behind glass, the lantern too hot to land on, the moon, forever. She cups her wings around him like two hands around a match — and discovers the terrible thing. Her wind makes him brighter. And everything that makes him brighter makes him more gone.

Every light she ever loved would have burned her. So he became one that never will.

A small pale moth flying up toward the huge full moon above a snow-covered stone fire ring holding a tangle of dry branches, frosted pines all around. — The whole world: a ring of stones, one dry tangle of wood, the light she can finally sit beside — and the moon she turns away from.

The stone ring tiny and alone in a vast dark snowfield, snow falling everywhere, one microscopic warm pinprick at its center. — The villain. It falls softly, it never hurries, and it has ended every fire it ever met.

The score came first

Written on "Guna"

Like every Last Light picture, the music was found before a single frame was drawn — and the film is cut to its exact shape. There is a sudden hush at 1:05, right after the track's first warm peak. That hush is where she understands what her wind is costing him — the music goes quiet for the choice.

Guna

Martin Landh · Epidemic Sound · 2:50 · the complete score

0:00

Snow falls on a fire that's already lost. One egg-sized coal left, going dark crack by crack. Nobody is coming.

0:32

A moth climbs through the snow toward the moon — the light she can never have — and sees a tiny warm point below. She turns.

0:52

She cups her wings around him like two hands around a match. A little room in the storm, glowing orange from the inside.

1:05

The hush. Her wingbeat makes him brighter — and spends him. They both understand at the same moment.

1:14

He looks at the one dry thing left in the world. She looks back at him. Two looks, no words. The agreement.

1:22

The crossing: a glowing trench through the snow, her flying low above him, her wings catching the flakes meant for him.

1:44

Down to one thread of light, he climbs into the wood — and she understands, and she helps. The wood catches.

1:56

The ring roars into an island of summer. Snow turns to bright rain above it. At the fire's edge: a small gray shell, going quiet.

2:08

She passes the big warm fire and chooses the shell — folds her wings over him, giving the shelter back. The fire he became keeps her alive all night.

2:35

Dawn. One new spark lifts off the young fire and rises into the pale gold — and her antennae stir toward it in her sleep.

The cast

Small parts. Enormous stakes.

The Ember — a cracked charcoal shell glowing orange from within, sparks lifting off him like breath.

The hero

The Ember

The last of the fire — the part that remembers being warm. No face, no voice, no flame; just a cracked charcoal shell around a stubborn orange heart, going dark one crack at a time like windows in a town where everyone's leaving. He can go out slowly, alone. Or he can burn bright once, for something. All heart, and every bit of it visible through the cracks.

The Moth — a small pale moth with frost-dusted wings and huge dark gentle eyes, lit by a faint warm glow.

The other light

The Moth

A moth's whole life is loving lights she can't have — the porch bulb behind glass, the lantern too hot to land on, the moon, forever. On the night winter arrives she finds a light that is small, and dying, and exactly her size. Her wings are his walls and his bellows; his heat is her hearth. She is the best thing that ever happened to him. She is also spending him — and they both know it.

The Snow — a single snowflake dying on the ember's shell in a wisp of steam as one of his glowing cracks fades to dark.

The villain

The Snow

It isn't cruel. It's just winter, arriving on schedule. It falls softly and endlessly on everything, and every flake that lands on him dies with a little hiss — and takes something with it. It never hurries, never doubts, and has ended every fire it ever met. It is the world, gently, patiently, putting him out.