Children's stories feature imaginative places with fantastical characters. While these worlds of wonder can bring delight to young audiences, there are some stories never meant for children.

That’s the message in the animated series “Unfairy Tales.” The third film of the series, “Mustafa Goes For A Walk,” chronicles the true story of thirteen year old Mustafa’s harrowing journey out of Syria. Mustafa is one of eight million children whose lives are in ruins because of the Syrian conflict.

After leaving behind his loved ones and prized possessions, Mustafa settles at a refugee camp only to now face the fear of unwelcoming neighbors. “Unfairy Tales” asks that we show every child the kindness they deserve.

The challenge was to tastefully turn a gruesome, gut-wrenching story into a delicate art piece through narration and a visual style fitting of Mustafa’s testimony.

“Mustafa Goes For A Walk” highlights the absurdity of the situation, using the lightness of a classic children’s cartoon to undercut such a tragic and real story.

In order to achieve a classic look, the characters were digitally textured to look like they were hand-drawn. They were then juxtaposed over illustrated backgrounds, and used traditional 2D frame-by-frame animation for the effects, such as explosions, smoke and water.

That mixture of techniques gave the film its unique style, and allowed a focus on animation and camera work, giving freedom to explore options otherwise not afforded when doing traditional 2D animation.

UNICEF is starting to change the conversation around the youngest refugees. They are often seen as threats to their host countries, leading to their stigmatization and marginalization, in turn making their transition and acceptance into other countries difficult. Through the campaign, these children’s voices were heard by more than half billion people across 176 countries, leading to not only widespread exposure, but a widening of perspectives. News stories and social comments in response to the campaign (i.e. “I want to adopt Mustafah”) show a major attitude shift in terms of accepting/helping these kids.