On Weary Wings Go By / Linnud läinud – A Wintry Stop-Motion Poem from Anu-Laura Tuttelberg
Estonian director Anu-Laura Tuttelberg returns with her latest handcrafted short film On Weary Wings Go By (Linnud läinud), a mesmerizing blend of nature, sculpture, and the quiet passage of time. A co-production between Estonia and Lithuania, the 2024 stop-motion film continues Tuttelberg’s signature exploration of materiality and landscape through tactile animation and visual poetry.
Shot on 16 mm film with a Paillard Bolex H16 REX-3 camera, On Weary Wings Go By unfolds as a wordless meditation on the northern winter. The film opens on a desolate, frozen coastline where the sun hovers low in the sky and daylight fades quickly. As birds migrate south, porcelain animals and insects retreat from the cold, leaving behind a small porcelain girl who wanders through the abandoned landscape — a fragile spirit adrift in a world of silence and snow.
The project was filmed over three winters on the coasts of Estonia and Norway, where Tuttelberg and her small crew faced sub-zero temperatures, fleeting daylight, and unpredictable weather. Each frame was painstakingly animated outdoors, with puppets sculpted from porcelain, a material chosen for both its delicate beauty and its discomforting coldness. “Porcelain is wonderful to animate,” Tuttelberg explained, “but when it’s freezing outside, it becomes ice in your hands.”
On Weary Wings Go By serves as the second chapter in Tuttelberg’s evolving trilogy that observes nature’s rhythms across the seasons. The first installment, Winter in the Rainforest (2019), explored tropical abundance, while this new film turns toward winter’s stillness and the themes of solitude and resilience. A forthcoming third film will complete the cycle with the rebirth of spring.
The director’s filmmaking process embraces collaboration with nature itself — the changing light, the wind, and the landscape all become living elements in the animation. Instead of imposing total control, Tuttelberg often follows what the environment offers. This philosophy, combined with the grain and imperfections of 16 mm analog film, gives On Weary Wings Go By its dreamlike tactility and emotional depth.
Complementing the film’s imagery is an evocative soundscape by Olga Bulygo and an original score from acclaimed Estonian composer Maarja Nuut, whose ethereal music accentuates the film’s themes of migration, memory, and transformation.
Following its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in 2024, the short has screened internationally at events including DOK Leipzig, StopTrik Festival, BLON Animation & Games Festival, and Animafest Zagreb 2025, where it was part of the Grand Competition – Short Film section. It also earned the Golden Dove for Best Animated Short at DOK Leipzig, an Oscar-qualifying win that positions Tuttelberg’s latest work among the year’s most significant independent stop-motion achievements.
On Weary Wings Go By reaffirms Anu-Laura Tuttelberg’s place as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary stop-motion. Her ability to blend physical craftsmanship with elemental storytelling continues to redefine what animated cinema can express — tender, quiet, and profoundly human.
Sources:
