Pixar films don't shy away from heavy material, but a new short from two animators at the studio goes even further in a story about tragic loss, painful memories, and closure. Animators Lou Hamou-Lhadj and Andrew Coats created Borrowed Time as a side project and brought it to a number of film festivals.

　　It's now been released on Vimeo. We won't spoil the plot points, but if you have a few minutes to spare, it's definitely worth a watch. Here's the plot synopsis: "A weathered Sheriff returns to the remains of an accident he has spent a lifetime trying to forget. With each step forward, the memories come flooding back. Faced with his mistake once again, he must find the strength to carry on."

　　"The goal for us was to make something that kind of contested the notion of animation being a genre, and one for children specifically," Hamou-Lhadj said in a behind-the-scenes video (via The Verge). "We really wanted to make something that was a little bit more adult in the thematic choices, and show that animation could be a medium to tell any sort of story."

　　The music in Borrowed Time was written by Oscar-winner Gustavo Santaolalla (Brokeback Mountain, Babel), who also wrote the music for The Last of Us.

　　Hamou-Lhadj's Pixar credits include WALL-E, Toy Story 3, Brave, and The Good Dinosaur. Coats worked at Ice Age studio Blue Sky before joining Pixar in 2010; he worked on Cars 2, Brave, Inside Out, and The Good Dinosaur. Borrowed Time marks the directorial debut for Hamou-Lhadj and Coats.

　　The next Pixar movie is 2017's Cars 3.