The final image of the short 3D film Ryan winner of the 2005 Academy Award for best-animated short is of a homeless beggar. To the world Oscar nominated animator turned panhandler, Ryan/s story had been told.

Ryan's Renaissance chronicles an improbable journey, friendship and what transpires after Ryan Larkin becomes the work's most famous panhandler. Ryan living at a homeless shelter and Laurie Gordon, a Montreal musician start working together. Laurie asks Ryan to draw a few pictures for her band's video, which serendipitously becomes Ryan's first animation film in 35 years. As their collaboration evolves Laurie unwittingly becomes a film producer and Ryan a director once more. We follow this quirky duo's utopian attempt to produce Spare Change. Not just a question of raising money, making this film involves getting an alcoholic off the streets into the hermit's cave of animation. Laurie invites Ryan to live in her home in the country with her husband and menagerie of cats and dogs. Ryan's generous unconcern for the camera eye gives witness to harrowing moments, hilarious events grasping insight into creativity, vision, and a yearning for a place to call home.