I’ve got an entertaining animated comedy short film for you to watch today titled Bento Banana. The short centers on the tales of an artificially intelligent kung-fu banana trapped inside a procedurally generated anime, engineered by a dystopian for-profit anime streaming service.
The movie comes from writer and director Ari Grabb. This short is shared in collaboration with the FilmQuest Film Festival, where we are looking to expose some of the radical indie genre films and shorts that filmmakers are creating.
I also included an interview with the director that you can read below!
What was the inspiration for your film? How did you come up with the idea?
Working in animation and listening to podcasts about AI, I started to get very anxious
Tell us about yourself. What is your background? How long have you been a filmmaker?
I have been filmmaking since I was a kid, and started to learn how to animate in college but as a film student. I managed to get an internship at a stop motion studio after college, and from there I became a professional animator.
What inspires you to work within genre cinema and tell these kind of stories?
I am a very emotional person, and sometimes complexity is easiest to express behind metaphor, hyperbole, and screaming bananas
What was your favorite part of the filmmaking process for this project?
compositing! Its fun to see the finished, polished result
What are you most proud of with this film?
The amount of people I got to work with
What is a favorite story or moment from the making of the film you’d like to share?
All my favorite jokes were improvised by my friend Rocky.
What was your most challenging moment or experience you had while making your film?
The shot of the Director spinning around the room was really hard. But it felt really important to me, so I had to try and get it to work.
If it did, how did your film change or differ from its original concept during pre-production, production, and/or post-production? How has this changed how you’ll approach future projects as a result?
If we go far enough back (Bento Banana is a web series), my initial idea was much much simpler. I wanted to make 1-3 minute episodes that would only take me maybe a month of work. But there was no soul in it.
Who were some of your collaborators and actors on the film? How did you start working with each other?
Rocky (Bento) was a hilarious guy who lived in my duplex apartment, and Lara (The Director) was on my improv team and I thought she had a weird voice. Gabriel (sound designer) is my best friend from film school.
What is the best advice you’ve ever received as a filmmaker and what would you like to say to new filmmakers?
Continually ask (but dont obsess), ‘why are you making this story’? There are so many short films I walk out of wondering why someone spent all this time money and energy to tell THIS story.
What are your plans for your career and what do you hope this film does for it? What kind of stories would you like to tell moving forward?
Right now I just hope the film/animation industry can continue to support me so I can continue to make indie films. Would love to aspire to be a show creator one day
What is your next project and when can we expect to see it?
Bento Banana 5: thinking 2026
Where can we find more of your work and where can interested parties contact you? Do you have a website or YouTube/Vimeo channel?
youtube.com/arigrabb
Bonus Question #1: What is your all-time favorite film?
Its Such a Beautiful Day – Don Hertzfelt
Bonus Question #2: What is the film that most inspired you to become a filmmaker and/or had the most influence on your work?
Not a film, but the TV show Invader Zim. It was cancelled prematurely, and I think my life mission as a filmmaker has been to recapture the way it used to make me feel.
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