Áron Gauder’s The Four Souls of the Coyote is a visually striking animated feature that reimagines Native American creation myths as a timeless ecological parable. Its narrative, at once poetic and urgent, intertwines mythological storytelling with present-day reflections on humanity’s fragile relationship with nature.

The animation style feels organic and hand-crafted, blending fluid movements with earth-toned palettes that echo cave paintings, folklore illustrations, and sacred iconography. This choice of aesthetic doesn’t just support the film’s subject — it embodies it, creating an audiovisual space where the sacred and the contemporary collide.

Through the myth of the coyote, trickster and creator, Gauder explores themes of greed, destruction, and the precarious balance between humans and the natural world. The storytelling resists simplicity, instead embracing a cyclical structure that mirrors both myth and ecology: there is no neat resolution, only a reminder of responsibility.

As a European work deeply inspired by Native American traditions, the film walks a delicate line between reverence and reinterpretation. What emerges is less a didactic message and more an act of cultural dialogue, drawing attention to the ways myth continues to illuminate contemporary crises like climate change.

Four Souls of Coyote is not only an animated feature but also a philosophical manifesto. It reminds us that stories are not just entertainment; they are tools of survival, memory, and resistance.