In a Heartbeat is a short animated film about a closeted teenager called Sherwin who harbours a secret crush on a classmate named Jonathan. In the dialogue-free short, Sherwin goes to great lengths to keep his crush a secret but his heart has other plans. It escapes his body and goes on a heartwarming (sorry) quest to be with the boy he loves.

The short film, created by film students Beth David and Esteban Bravo as their thesis project, was financed by a successful Kickstarter campaign which raised $14,191 in December, 2016.

“Working on this film has been a true labor of love for us both, and we need your help to make it the best it can be. Your donation will enable us to hire an extremely talented composer and sound designer to create a unique, original soundtrack for our film,” wrote the pair on their Kickstarter page.

In A Heartbeat was brought to public attention after a tweet about the short film quickly went viral, in May, gaining over 46,000 retweets and 100,000 likes.

“There hasn’t been like a movie, or at least like a big animated film in which the main character is gay and the subject of being gay is addressed,” Esteban told Teen Vogue after the tweet about the pair’s short film went viral.

“We really wanted to bring light to a subject that is rarely explored in computer animation and we want people to be a little bit more understanding and aware of what the experience of being gay is like through an animated short that is sweet and light-hearted.”