The Orbit of Minor Satellites is the latest feature from experimental filmmaker Chris Sullivan (2012 Creative Capital Awardee). The film incorporates hand drawn animation, live action, painting, radio recordings, and digital compositing to tell a universal story about giving life and accepting death in dark times. The film explores parallel narratives, including the relationship between a psychiatry patient and their doctor, a Cold War era relic orbiting in space, a woman grieving her dead sister, and a talking buffalo voiced by Boris Karloff.

The film is the culmination of years of drawing, rewriting, researching Karloff’s radio work, and contending with a lack of a studio crew. With this project, Sullivan offers his audience a release from issues of grief, haunting, remorse, and guilt that afflict so many. The film premieres in the Contrechamp Feature Films competition section at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in Annecy, France, June 23-26, 2026.