Apple Original Films and Skydance Animation announce new animated short film ‘Blush’

Apple Original Films and Skydance Animation announced news today of Blush, the first short film debuting as part of an expansive multi-year partnership to deliver groundbreaking, premium animated films and theatrical-quality animated television series in over 100 countries on Apple TV+. 

Blush follows the journey of a stranded horticulturist-astronaut’s chances for survival after he crash lands on a desolate dwarf planet. When an ethereal visitor arrives, the once-lone traveler discovers the joy in building a new life and realizes the universe has delivered astonishing salvation.

The inaugural Apple/Skydance short film is written and directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Joe Mateo (Prep & Landing, Big Hero 6), and shares the storyteller’s deeply personal journey of healing, hope and the undeniably human moments of being rescued by love. Mateo developed Blush alongside the Skydance Animation team and the film is produced by Heather Schmidt Feng Yanu (Toy Story, the Cars trilogy) and executive produced by Oscar winner John Lasseter (Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Cars). Blush joins highly anticipated Apple/Skydance features Luck and Spellbound, and the animated series The Search for Wondla, with several more feature films and television series to be announced over the term of the pact. 

Blush follows Apple’s recent Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature for Wolfwalkers, the latest film from two-time Academy Award-nominated director Tomm Moore and director Ross Stewart.

Films and series created and produced by Skydance Animation will premiere alongside Apple Original Films including the Academy Award-nominated Greyhound, Critics Choice Award-nominated Palmer, Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award-nominated film On The Rocks, the two-time Critics Choice Documentary Award-winner and Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner Boys State and Critics Choice Documentary Award-nominee Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds.

Apple TV+ offers premium, compelling drama and comedy series, feature films, groundbreaking documentaries, and kids and family entertainment, and is available to watch across all your favorite screens. After its launch on November 1, 2019, Apple TV+ became the first all-original streaming service to launch around the world, and has premiered more original hits and received more award recognitions faster than any other streaming service. Apple Originals have been honored with 345 awards nominations and 93 wins in just over a year, including Critics Choice Awards, Critics Choice Documentary Awards, Daytime and Primetime Emmy Awards, an NAACP Image Award, Writers Guild of America Awards, a Peabody Award and more.

Skydance Animation is a division of David Ellison’s Skydance Media which is run by John Lasseter (Head of Animation) and Holly Edwards (President of Skydance Animation). 

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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