There is a boy who can fly. The higher he rises, the stranger he appears to those left on the ground. He stirs something like fear in his father—and disbelief. His father worries what the other parents will think, the ones whose children do normal things, which certainly does not include floating in the air. It is in Float (2019), a moving Pixar Animation Studios short now available on Disney+ in Italy, that this story unfolds—a story about disability that manages, in nine minutes, to shed light on it with both tenderness and gravity. At its heart: a father left alone with a son who asks only to be accepted for who he is.
The screen shows an animated portrait of a relationship that is anything but simple. The father hides at home with the boy. He does not want the world to know, does not want them to see this "ability to fly" that would be immediately labeled as difference, as strangeness, as something to fear. "Why can't you be normal?" the father asks at the film's turning point—and this is where the relationship reaches its breaking moment. But it is at the park, in front of everyone—neighbors, acquaintances, friends from whom he has always hidden—that something shifts. Thanks to his son's innocent, unguarded response, the father finally understands. He becomes aware. He transforms his anger into acceptance.
The ending is that of a modern fairy tale, but far from trivial or preachy. Only when we shed our prejudices—with unconditional love, intelligence, and responsibility—do we become aware that two can fly together. The boy has a natural gift for it; the father needs only a swing to float alongside him, to draw near, to do better. This is the vision of Bobby Alcid Rubio (Hercules, Atlantis, Incredibles 2), writer and director of Float, who is himself the father of a boy with autism and drew directly from his own life. "To Alex. Thank you for making me a better father. Dedicated with love and understanding to all families with children considered different"—these words close this small, intense gem of a film, and they are no accident.
Also available on Disney+ is Loop (2020), an eleven-minute short equally produced by Pixar, written and directed by Erica Milsom (Cars 3: Legendary, So Much Yellow, Snow Day). As the streaming platform notes, it "opens new horizons with Pixar's first autistic character."
Renée is a teenager on the autism spectrum. One day at summer camp, a sports instructor arranges for her to socialize by going canoeing with a talkative peer named Marcus. Marcus is reluctant at first—why would he go out with "the girl who doesn't talk?"—but soon agrees and climbs into the canoe with Renée. She says nothing, and repeatedly plays an annoying ringtone on her iPhone. After a series of mishaps, the two end up adrift on the lake. Renée's phone falls into the water. Without that sound, that repetition she has learned to rely on, she begins to panic. Only when Marcus reproduces the ringtone with his own voice do things settle. More than that: they improve. The lake trip marks the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
A friendship that exists—and this is Loop's central message—because it rests on the shared effort to see the world through the other's eyes and understand their needs and ways of being. It rests on a new mode of communication, entirely free of useless prejudice, capable of tearing down walls of indifference and silence.
"Canoe at three?" is the text message Renée receives from Marcus before the credits roll—on that famous iPhone ringtone, pulled from the depths of the lake and sitting in a bowl of puffed rice. Dedicated to the memory of animator Adam Burke, Loop is an example of empathy untainted by condescension or hypocrisy, untouched by the rigid labels that box people in. The short suggests that there are simply two young people here, and they do not think to classify themselves in cold terms like "neurotypical," "normal," or "atypical." Instead, they take the canoe and paddle together until they can reach out and touch the tall grass growing near the water.
Both Float and Loop deserve to be seen for the depth and seriousness they bring to the lives of people with disabilities. In both shorts, created under Pixar's Sparkshorts initiative—aimed at discovering new techniques and talent in digital animation—there is no simplification whatsoever. Despite being short films, animated products one might expect to be "light," their strength lies in showing the difficult side too: the father who cannot accept his disabled son; Renée isolated by her peers, hard to connect with. They show real struggle, the prejudices one encounters along the way. And yet they insist that a way forward exists, that everything can be overcome with dignity held high. This is rare. It is increasingly rare to find stories like these told with such care.
Consider Atypical (2017), the American Netflix series created by Robia Rashid and directed by Seth Gordon, where disability is treated with troubling carelessness. Yes, here we have flesh-and-blood actors, not animated characters, so a comparison might seem risky. Yet the gap in depth and thoughtfulness is unmistakable. Atypical, with its fourth season expected in 2021, relies too heavily on stereotype and raises serious questions. Is it necessary to emphasize the comedic side of disabled characters—the comic, not ironic side—in order to talk about disability at all? Does Sam, the autistic protagonist, need to be surrounded by unrealistic supporting characters just to justify his existence on screen? And here is the deeper problem: despite the series' merit in even addressing disability, why did its first season include no autistic actors in the cast?
The real difference between these shorts and that series lies not in technical features—Atypical has a brilliant Jennifer Jason Leigh—but in how the stories approach these themes. In less than fifteen minutes, Float and Loop achieve something mature through genuine understanding of the other, real sensitivity, and an honest refusal to soften the truth. They capture both shadow and light, bitter and sweet, the real texture of disability and of life itself.