Michele Fino Joins Versus as Head of Content Partnerships
February 19, 2026
London-based writer/director Richard Paris Wilson teams with animation director Ewa Smyk to assemble thousands of hand-painted frames into an emotional and true tale of a young girl, a rare disease, and plenty of hope.
Richard Paris Wilson: “Layla’s Mountain is a short film based on an interview with a real patient, an 11-year old girl living with an ultra-rare kidney condition called aHUS (Atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome).
“I’d filmed a series of traditional live-action interviews for Alexion [Pharmaceuticals] for another project, and we were due to interview a patient called Layla. But we knew we’d only have a limited time with her which ruled out all of the traditional opportunities to get B-roll of her and her family together.
“So we hatched a plan to frame the questions in a way to encourage vivid answers, in the hope we could maybe animate a couple of short, key moments of her story.
“We didn’t anticipate Layla would be so articulate and courageous in her answers. We all walked away from the interview thinking that to do her story justice we needed to animate the whole thing.”
“We didn’t anticipate Layla would be so articulate and courageous in her answers. We all walked away from the interview thinking that to do her story justice we needed to animate the whole thing; to make a little document of her young life.
“It was a nice idea but I hadn’t directed animation before. The plan only became real when I met Ewa Smyk, an extremely talented animation director. With my neighbor and his daughter as a stand-in, I blocked out the film and shot it all as reference. Then we started putting the pieces together, one painting at a time.
“We’d been editing the film to an existing piece of music by Ukrainian composer and violinist Natalia Tsupryk. As we progressed, it became difficult to see the film any other way, so when Natalia generously agreed to develop the piece to fit the project more precisely, we knew we were part of something special.
“Where it might normally be difficult to get a client to buy into a long-term project like this (it took us just under a year), Alexion were terrific partners, and let us take our time to make sure it all came together.”
Production: Healthy Films, RPW Films
Writer/Director: Richard Paris Wilson
Animation Director: Ewa Smyk
Animator/Painter: Natasza Cetner, Haemin Ko
Editor/Colourist: Richard Paris Wilson
Interviewer: Louise Salter
Music: Natalia Tsupryk
Sound Design: Sam Mason
Dialogue Recordist: Dewi Fôn Evans
Voice: Layla
