The Orbit of Minor Satellites

USA 2026 Dir: Chris Sullivan 120’00

As psychiatrist Derwood Richards prepares to say goodbye to Rosemary Hamm, his long-term patient, the boundaries between therapy, memory and imagination begin to blur. Their parting opens a portal into a wonderfully strange universe of lost astronauts, Cold War ghosts and a mysterious Soviet-American space station drifting somewhere beyond Saturn.

Chris Sullivan’s The Orbit of Minor Satellites moves freely between hand-drawn animation, live action and tactile handmade imagery, creating a world that feels at once intimate and cosmic. What begins as an unconventional therapeutic relationship expands into a meditation on grief, loneliness and the stories we construct when reality becomes too difficult to bear.

Tender, funny and beautifully eccentric, this is science fiction of the most human kind: less concerned with conquering distant planets than with the impossible distances between people. For anyone willing to leave the familiar orbit behind, Sullivan offers a singular cinematic journey - strange, melancholy and full of unexpected wonder.

This film is screening as part of the 2026 London International Animation Festival, a 10 day event across London and online from November 27 to December 6.

Please visit https://liaf.org.uk/whats-on-liaf-2026 for the full festival details and schedule.

Description supplied by the event organiser.