22: Getting Through It with Natalia Poteryakhin

Episode 22 is a lucky one with director Natalia Poteryakhin, sharing anecdotes of endurance, logging off, and blind faith, all bolstering her animation career. Further blessing this episode is the appearance of non-human guest Zoe Lombardi-Bello. Watch on video on Youtube or Spotify! Sunny Side Down is a sci-fi parody series where existential dread is served hot with a side of 90’s nostalgia.  Just beyond the event horizon of a supermassive black hole floats a tiny diner, frozen in time. Every super short episode drops in on whichever weird alien just got pulled into the black hole’s grasp, cutting between their arrival and off-the-wall conversations with the diner’s cryptic cook, Yabba, about what actually lies beyond.  There is no way back. You either stay at the diner forever, or risk passing through the hole.  Think Spaceballs-level absurdity meets Cheers-style diner regulars, filtered through a radical 90’s sci-fi lens. Expect visual gags, fast setups, and parody riffs on classics like Men in Black, Terminator 2, The Matrix, Starship Troopers, and Contact. This is not hard sci-fi. Physics is optional. Absurdity is mandatory.  At the center of it all is Nat, a human waitress and accidental astrophysics prodigy stranded at the diner after a light travel experiment went wrong. She is stubborn, brilliant, snarky, and desperate enough to believe she can build a machine strong enough to escape a black hole. While serving coffee and dodging alien drama, she secretly hoards space junk to engineer her way home to Earth.  Running the diner is Yabba, an ancient, chainsmoking, four-armed mentor who has kept this place running for millennia. She is tired. She wants to retire. But her only option is the black hole itself, and she will not go unless someone is ready to take over the diner.  Sunny Side Down is not a kids show. Things do not have neat morals. Good behavior is not rewarded. It leans into existential dread, the horror of living in the shadow of a black hole, and the strange comfort of routine in a place you cannot leave. It is purgatory with pancakes. Get your hands on a Camp Snap Camera for $5 off by using my link! https://www.campsnapphoto.com/INDIALOMBARDIBELLO Links to points of discussion: Sunny Side Down Natalia's website Natalia's Instagram The Animator's Animations MAKE Originals on YouTube Nice Moves - MN Creator on YouTube Tess Martin on TAF The Animator's Playlist Anne Beal on TAF Hellavision The Animator's Favorites Emory Allen's website Anatola Howard's website Nicole Otaola on TAF The Animator's Friend on Instagram   The Animator's Friend is hosted by India Lombardi-Bello, an animation educator based in New York City. In this series, India creates a platform where animators get to talk about themselves outside the context of their work. A questionnaire format, inspired by the 24 frames per second of animation, allows for personal, lighthearted, and unexpected conversation. Credits: Recorded, produced, and edited by India Lombardi-Bello Booking assistance from Chris Hollis & Amy Steman Digital marketing assistance from Arnesh Kundu Music by Cloutmeyer Design by Sawyer Rippon Special thanks: my mom and dad; Kristie Kish; Michael Dondero; Barnaby Catterall All opinions belong to the guests and do not represent any other individual or entity.