Balinale Winner ‘Retirement Plan’ in Oscar Consideration

Filmmaker John Kelly has shared with AWN a detailed look into his award-winning short film, Retirement Plan. Inspired by a panic attack, the quiet, thoughtful and amusing film “is a profound meditation on the gap between aspiration and reality, blending humor and poignancy to illuminate the choices that shape our later years.” As they say… “Mind the gap!”

In the film, Domhnall Gleeson stars as Ray, who lives an overstimulated, energy poor 40-something-year-old life. He beats back his apathy with life by dreaming of how wonderful his life will be when he retires. He lays out a beautiful life for himself in his retirement plan, pursuing his curiosities, challenging his limiting beliefs, embracing fear, beauty, even the complexities of wine culture. Ray will check off every box on every list for every interest he ever even half-thought about. He will discover what he loves (Italian red wine), what he hates (camping). He will grow and learn and change rapidly. It’s beautiful and it’s messy and achingly relatable. But Ray is forgetting something. The one thing he treats as flippantly disposable will be the single most rapidly depleting resource of his future self: his healthy-ish, agile enough 40-something-year-old body. Also, actual retirement time is not endless but guaranteed to be finite.

Enjoy the teaser trailer:

The 7:17 2D film is directed by Kelly, who also wrote the film with co-writer Tara Lawall. Julie Murnaghan served as producer; Andrew Freedman was the associate producer. Marah Curran and Eamonn O’Neill handled the animation. The film has had a successful festival run since it was completed in June 2024, including wins of both the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at SXSW 2025, as well as wins for Best Animated Short at the Bali International Film Festival and the Best of the Festival Award at Palm Springs International Shortfest. The film has qualified for the 2026 Oscars.

According to Kelly, the basic idea for the film popped into his head during a mild panic attack during a short-haul flight. “It was the kind of existential crisis that silently hits a 43-year-old man when he realizes how many flagged emails he has. This was the jumping off point, and the film took shape as a sort of list, indexing various dreams and fears my co-writer Tara Lawall and I have had (and dreams and fears we imagine other people might have).”