Directed by Ashley Johnsgaard, Ella Hiebert
When a vain princess runs out of her signature hair gel, she ventures outside of the kingdom in search of slug jelly–motivated by the fear that she will become unlovable if she can’t live up to her family’s eccentric beauty standards. The sun is rising over the Bo Bina castle, and inside, the Bo Binas are already swooping and swirling their hair into impossibly exquisite hairstyles. As each family member primps with the effortless grace of a well-oiled-machine, Princess Dina Bo Bina clumsily wrestles and globs and yanks at her own hair. Tall, awkward, and painfully sensitive, Dina can never seem to keep up with her impressive family. After smooshing glob after glob of Slug Hair Jelly into her wild hair, she suddenly reaches the bottom of the jar. With no chance of saving face and joining her family for breakfast, she feels her only option is to sneak out of the castle in search for more slugs. Dina’s erratic state leads her into a blind frenzy as she searches for the one thing that will fix her hair. Lost and directionless in the nearby swamp, her emotional breakdown leads her to make more mistakes. Rock bottom, (or rather mud-bottom) in the swamp, Dina’s eventual stillness prompts creatures in the swamp to show her an unforeseen gentleness when she needs it the most.
Ashley Johnsgaard
Ashley: Ashley Johnsgaard is a stop motion artist who was born and raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and completed her bachelor’s degree in Media Arts at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver. Riddled with many creative hobbies from a young age, she learned to embrace interdisciplinary craft through stop motion fabrication and animation at Emily Carr. Ever since, Ashley has been captivated by fabricating tactile worlds and fostering the stop motion community at ECU. In particular, she loves the nitty-gritty aspects of puppet fabrication—blending mechanical function with design vision to suit the needs of character performance. In the future, she aims to work collaboratively on stop motion films through fabrication and animation. Ella: Ella Hiebert grew up in Summerland, BC, and completed a Bachelor’s degree in Media Arts at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, BC, where she currently resides. Homeschooling for the first years of her education and being read picture books every night dug her a deep well of love for storytelling and creating artwork for children. At Emily Carr, she studied 2D + Experimental Animation where she fell in love with the hands -on, all encompassing medium of stop motion animation. She finds immense joy in translating wild illustrations into a tactile space, enjoying the meticulous practice of building a stop motion world, from painting facial features on face replacements to creating a closet teeming with frilly dresses. She aims to work in character design and set fabrication for stop motion films, as well as publish a children’s book one day.
Regina International Film Festival and Awards Regina, Saskatchewan August 21, 2026 World Premiere Best Student Short Canada Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology Portland, Oregon August 22, 2026 United States Premiere Nominee: Best Student Stop-Motion Film United States Frame FEST Tír an Fhia, Leitir Mór August 29, 2026 Ireland Premiere Official Selection Ireland SPARK ANIMATION 2026 Vancouver, British Columbia September 19, 2026 British Columbia Premiere Official Selection Canada SCAD AnimationFest Atlanta, Georgia September 23, 2026 Georgia Premiere Official Selection United States
