A Tree Once Grew Here

A wordless environmental fable that mixes animation with AI imagery and asks the viewer to care for the planet "because we can no longer afford not to." The Semerads deliberately left out anything tied to a single culture or period, so it could speak to anyone. It premiered at New York's Quad Cinema in September 2023, won a Merit award at Runway's second AI Film Festival, and later screened at Short Shorts in Tokyo and Ars Electronica.