Little Shrew is released on Bush’s official website on Friday. It is free to watch, but encourages viewers to support organisations helping children in conflict.
The short film, which Bush worked with an illustrator to create, was partly inspired by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“I started working on it a couple of years ago, it was not long after the Ukrainian war broke out, and I think it was such a shock for all of us,” Bush explained.
“It’s been such a long period of peace we’d all been living through. And I just felt I wanted to make a little animation that would feature, originally, a little girl. It was really the idea of children caught up in war. I wanted to draw attention to how horrific it is for children.
“And so I came up with this idea for a storyboard and felt that, actually, people would be more empathetic towards a creature rather than a human. So I came up with the idea of it being a little shrew.”
Reflecting on the impact of conflict on children, Bush said: “I think war is horrific for everyone, particularly civilians, because they’re so vulnerable in these situations. But for a child, it’s unimaginable how frightening it must be for them.”
The 66-year-old added: “I think we’ve all been through very difficult times. These are dark times that we’re living in and I think, to a certain extent, everyone is just worn out.”
“We went through the pandemic, that was a huge shock, and I think we felt that, once that was over, that we would be able to get on with some kind of normal life.
“But in fact it just seems to be going from one situation to another, and more wars seem to be breaking out all the time.
