Sundance Film Festival 2025 – Writer/director Aline Höchli‘s animated short film Caries is such a strange and wonderful journey. It focuses on a tiny shaman that lives inside the mouth of a weather forecaster. The mouth becomes a canvas for the shaman’s weirdly mesmerizing murals.

The short bounces back and forth between the external and internal worlds, the micro and the macro. It begins by showcasing some of the unnamed shaman’s murals, which mostly resemble wolf-like creatures, shaded in black. We encounter the weather forecaster’s tongue, teeth, germs, and all other aspects of the mouth. It’s never clear why exactly the shaman lives inside a mouth, but that’s okay. This film is much more about the journey and the wonder of the hand-drawn animation techniques, including ink and aquarelle on paper. All of this makes for quite a captivating world, even if the shaman never leaves the mouth.

The film does focus on the external world somewhat, too. We see the weather forecaster wake up, eat breakfast, and even go to the dentist, which poses a challenge for the shaman and similar characters that also call the mouth home. As the dentist drills, they hide between teeth to protect themselves. There’s even a point where the human character makes out with another, and yes, you see the tongues dancing and twirling, posing another unique challenge to the residents of the forecaster’s mouth.

Caries offers one unique adventure, most of which takes place inside the mouth of a weather forecaster. Höchli’s exploration of this micro world and its deeper realms creates a riveting 10 minutes of animation.