evidence: Colonel Richard Strickland has captured a mysterious creature from a South American river and taken it to the Baltimore facility for study. Curious, Elisa discovers it is a humanoid amphibian. She begins visiting him in secret, and they form a bond. [...] While covering the plagiarism accusations from Jeunet and Zindel, comparisons were also drawn between The Shape of Water and the 2015 short film "The Space Between Us", the latter of which was created as a student project at the Netherlands Film Academy.[79][80] Outlets reported that both films held a similar premise, that of a janitorial worker falling in love with an amphibious man held captive at a research facility, as well as other similarities such as the time period as well as "scenes in which the woman feeds the creature and dances to records in front of it; and rescue missions, both involving laundry carts, devised after plans to kill and dissect the creatures come to light."[81][82] After screening a copy of The Shape of Water, the Netherlands Film Academy and students issued a statement acknowledging the films as uniquely different and that "They have separate timelines of development and are not in any conceivable way interlinked or related."[83]