RIIFF Filmmaker 2026 Spotlight Series: A Little Death, Directed by Leto Meade & Jonathan Rockefeller
Article Written By Anastasia Tunberg
The film A Little Death, based on Nicholas Gurewitch’s novel, Notes on a Case of Melancholia, Or: A Little Death, is an exploration of connection, familial relationships, and what it means to grow and evolve. The story follows Death, and his apprentice, Little Death, as he teaches her the ways of being a Grim Reaper. However, Little Death has her own way of doing things, and it all seems very unorthodox to Death. As the relationship between Death and Little Death evolves, Death learns to accept Little Death for who she is, and a beautiful bond forms between them. The animation style mirrors that of the book, and uses handcrafted animation to create a very human experience that reflects the themes the story presents. The style is both whimsical and macabre, and it completely draws the viewers in as they connect to the characters and go on this emotional journey with the Grim Reaper himself and his protégée.
I had the privilege of interviewing Leto Meade and Jonathan Rockefeller, the co-directors of A Little Death.
Anastasia Tunberg: What sparked the idea for this film- what about this story made you want to adapt it into an animated short?
Jonathan Rockefeller: I was really enchanted by the whimsical storytelling and the “Edward Gorey” illustrative style of Nicholas Gurewitch. The book is very short, but he beautifully captured the relationship between Death and Little Death in [it]. It blends such a sweet and beautiful story with this macabre and gothic scenario. It twists this idea of what family means: What does it mean to make yourself and your elders proud? Is it possible for somebody young to do something in a different way that has the same effect?
Our role taking on board an existing book was to paint and expand the universe for everything it was– what is the story between the pages, and everything beyond?
Ultimately, what attracted us to the story was the character relationships, and the beautiful handcrafted way that Nicholas constructed the story. So it wasn’t just the story itself that drew us in, it was the artistic style as well. So then it was really a question with Leto and the whole rest of the team of how we could take that style and reinterpret that into a film and moving context, and put our own spin on that at the same time.
Leto Meade: I was just going to add that the beginning process for me was that we went on these little journeys of how faithful we stay to the book, and should we just explore all of this. What we found time and time again is if we come back to the relationship of the two we found our solution to most of our issues. A lot of it was filling the space that the mind does when it looks into the book, and trying to express that on screen.
I come from a background of playing with woodblock, so I was deeply drawn by the style. I got in contact with some friends who make these beautiful prints in Scotland, and they were able to give us a lot of handmade textures and play on the steel and copper plates. We were able to use that to digitally make all of the backgrounds. The brushes were hand done as well to still emulate that style. It was a big challenge, but a fun one, to try to keep all of what makes those mediums so amazing, and that was really inspiring for me.
JR: Yes, I mean the storytelling was certainly a journey, because if we were to be book accurate, Little Death doesn’t appear until halfway through the book. So it was really approaching it from a dramatic and cinematic storytelling perspective– how does the story make sense for the screen and for the viewer, who doesn’t get to spend two to three minutes per page soaking in all of that detail. It’s a different medium, but like all good art, we are inspired by different mediums, and
I think that is one of the great joys of animation as well.
AT: Yes, I really appreciated the style of this animation, and that is what drew me in as well. It felt so whimsical and unique to look at.
LM: There is something to be said about black and white as a medium– it’s a difficulty in photography as well. The idea of composition becoming such a powerful tool– you can’t just draw a mountain with a character on it, because then the mountain is black and covers the character, who is also black. You get this really interesting thing of having to design everything frame by frame in a very pain-staking but also orchestrated and beautiful way. I think that’s why the images are so pulling, because it feels designed rather than putting the characters into a
space. We had to start from the layout phase early on to figure things out, and you don’t really know until you’ve done it.
AT: Speaking of the animation style, could you go into further detail about this filmmaking process from start to finish, and what it was like to handcraft this adaptation?
JR: I would just say that the general philosophy we had going in was to really honor the handcrafted nature of the animation style and the way the original book was created.That was the objective of it all, and you can tell when you freeze-frame it, you can see the handcrafted nature of every single frame. We are very proud of how that came about, but Leto can go into more detail about the actual ins and outs of it.
LM: Well, if I go into too much detail, we’ll be here until tomorrow. But I think the big challenge, as Jonathan was saying, was that we were all very passionate– Sophie, the story artist, was really passionate about how we need to keep this feeling like the book, but how do we do it within time constraints. We tried a bunch of different ways– we tried custom brushes, we tried more industry familiar things such as making things as puppets. Time and time again we felt like we were cheating it a little bit, as if the medium itself was going, “Hey mate, give me the attention and love I expect,” so the acceptance was to do it by hand, and clean it up frame by frame, which means actually adding all those dots and lines and etchings in each frame. This is really hard to keep consistent, but somehow– and I think this is just a part of art, being slightly messy and not perfect gives another breath to it. You feel like someone was behind something, and I think many people today crave that.
It was funny how we had to structure it. Basically, we had to have a cat specialist that was specifically on that cat from beginning to end– otherwise someone would have drawn it too differently in the sense of how we attempt the lines. It’s not like Snoopy or Mickey Mouse where they have the three lines and you’re able to draw them cleanly, we are talking about lines that are undefinable like how the contour of a face works. So it meant dividing the team like that was the best way. It’s nice to feel that the artists are also going, “hey let’s push a little harder and get this as good as we can.”
JR: Technically as well, like how Leto talked about the backgrounds and how they were created on steel and copper plates, was a very visceral, handcrafted experience. The artists working on the cat and the different animals were working to make sure the fur looked like it was moving and still had that two-dimension, flat quality to it, and that it was the stylistic quality of the film.
When we were looking at illustrating the backgrounds and the scenic landscapes, we approached it like black and white photography. Was there a black point we could pinpoint, was there enough gradience in the white, the blacks and whites in between– although it is a black and white film, there are so many unique shades of grey in the middle. It makes it appear black and white, but there is a lot of tonal context to give it a lot more depth, just like it was coming out of a printing press. It speaks to the craftsmanship of the animators and everyone who worked on the piece, and I think they all did a fantastic job.
AT: Absolutely. So, I wanted to come back to something you kind of mentioned earlier– that one of the main interpretations of the story that you expanded on was the relationship between Death and Little Death. Could you talk a little more about what hooked you to that relationship, and what it was like drawing that part of the story out?
JR: I think we wanted to make people cry– I mean, happy tears. But really, the story of Death and Little Death is about a fatherly figure discovering that his apprentice is not the disaster that he thought she was. It was something that we explored, worked, and corrected in different ways to really work out what that relationship was for those two, and what the beats of that relationship were. We thought that if we can present a short film that has the same emotional tone of a feature in a very short period of time, then we are doing our jobs correctly– can we introduce those characters and express what their relationship is? Can we look through the turmoil in that relationship, and can we work out the resolution, beats and everything in between?
Death, in the context of the script and film, goes through so much of an emotional journey: he goes into therapy, and has this raw experience of what that’s like. We get to see how he goes from, “I can control my protégée, she’s a disaster,” to “oh my god, am I actually killing her (metaphorically and physically) by putting my methods onto her.” It really was important to bring out all the facets of their relationship to expand and explore that, because at the end of the day, most films are about relationships. It’s about the relationships we can form with the viewers, and what emotions they are feeling connecting with the characters. So we needed to have a really great relationship, even if it’s the Grim Reaper– because if the audience can connect with the Grim Reaper, then that is a really good place to be in.
LM: You know, I’m a sucker for parent-child stories, and I’ve made films like that before. So I think that’s why I was really drawn to this. There’s something really lovely about accepting
change, and I think Death changing towards the end is the bit that gets me. It’s the fact that we’ve seen him be this still kind of person for the whole film, then when he cracks a smile at the end when he’s spinning Little Death around and being kind of goofy in that moment, there’s a vulnerability there that he’s finally open to. That for me was the important moment– that he accepts her for who she is.
JR: I think you feel the same way, but one of my favorite shots is when he spins her around, and her hair is flowing, and he starts smiling back at her. I think there’s something so special about that, because we go through the journey of them together, and that speaks to the heart of what it’s all about. It’s about two people– or entities or whatever they are, connecting together.
LM: I think it’s funny that in a film where we’re being so overly dramatic, almost to the point of making us laugh with all of the thunder, lightning, and melodrama of it all, that the most important scene is the one that is just where they’re delicately being two people. That’s the power of that, in a sense, because you can go all the way to one side, then get to something really quite soft.
AT: I also enjoy parent-child relationships in film, so that was one of my favorite scenes as well, and it was so beautifully done. So, kind of going back to the process a little bit, I was wondering if there was anything about this project in particular that made you learn something, or look at something differently coming out of the process of making this film?
LM: A lot of the time when I’m making films, I think it’s really hard to be objective, especially when push comes to shove and you have to deliver something. It’s hard to slow down and really look at things. One thing I really value in Jonathan and I’s relationship for this film was how we
would say, “Okay, we’ve got it” but then ask ourselves, “How can we get it ten percent further. How can we polish this and get it as good as it can be.” I really think there’s such enormous value in that ten percent, which is often lost in our very quick-paced society. I think for me that was a really big takeaway and learning curve.
The amount of iterations we did in the animatic, I think we had about fifty-seven versions of the film by the end. I teach now on occasion, and the first thing I tell my students is “You want to hit at least forty versions before you really know your film.” There’s something special that between
the both of us, we could talk about it and say “We tried that, we’ve seen that version of the film, we polished that…” then actually see, “This is it, this is how we’re going to get there.” There’s a nice confidence and excitement in that to then get it in front of audiences.
JR: The wonderful thing about working together, and this is the first time I have personally co-directed something, is that we work exceptionally well together. We have the same likes and dislikes, but also are willing to discuss, problem-solve, and go to version fifty-seven together.
We’re willing to push the extra ten percent, twenty percent, then go back again and sit with things.
I think that’s the wonderful thing about animation in particular, even more than a live-action film, is that you’ve got so many brilliant artisans who are working on it. Each is so crafted in their own facets of what they are doing for the entire process, so ideas can come from everyone and everywhere. You have to be open to those ideas and be able to curate and discuss them together to work out where the best solutions and problems are– where to emphasize and where to pull back. It’s a curation, like a sieve, and may the best idea win. The best thing was there was no ego between us or anything, and that’s why we had a great team that worked well together.
LM: Just to quickly say again– I love animation and that’s obvious about me, but I think there’s something truly special in the fact that every person on our team has something very specific they can do, that only they can truly do. I don’t mean just technical ability or skill. The two animators are both brilliant and have done multiple years in the industry at the same level, but each one will be able to capture something specific. There’s something so special about that hand to page connection as someone draws a character and how they look into it. The joy in it for me is that you live with these people for a year and a half, and you know exactly how they feel about certain things, how they animate certain things based on what they lived through. Because you don’t have actors in that traditional sense, so these people are your actors. I’m really excited to hear about what people think of the film.
JR: One of the fun things about the film is it takes you on a journey, and it keeps changing the gears of what it is. You think it’s going to end one way, then it goes in a completely different direction. That’s one of the great joys that the film does, it toys with you and takes you on a ride. But most of all, I think we all really connect to the characters, and we love Little Death. I think it’s super cool to see audiences embrace that character.
