An experiment in pure design by film artists Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart. Lines, ruled directly on film, move with precision and grace against a background of changing colors, in response to music specially composed for the films.
Social & External
A choir of tropical frogs performs infectious pop in delightfully unsettling animation from Costa Rican-Canadian artist Bianca Shonee Arroyo-Kreimes. Riffing on karaoke companion videos and the swipe-n-scroll conventions of handheld media, she infuses candy-coloured digital animation with the spectre of ecological collapse.
Sally, a dressy little girl, receives a lesson from a sorcerer about lying and happiness.
A film miniature to classical music inspired by the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Praise for the joy of life, synchronously set to the vocalization of Mozart's piece.
Its Autumn, birds are migrating to warmer climate. On the gray streets of Paris, illegal immigrants are selling shoes. Winter is near.
The aristocratic White Mice and the rustic Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak battle over the doll of their hearts' desire.
Healthy eating for children is explained and how children can help themselves to improve their well-being, health and performance by eating properly.
A greedy little blue jay carries away whatever his beak can grasp. Berries, birds' eggs (nests and all), and even the sun in the sky go into his secret cache.
The stone-people Hew and Kew have seen a lot in their everlasting lives on top of their mountain. Therefore they're only mildly amazed by the ongoings in the valley below, they've got their own little problems to deal with - But all of a sudden, Mankind is discovering and inventing, instead of just woozeling, and this new behavior starts to threaten Hew's and Kew's stoic peacefulness...
For the fourth time, it's ghost day again at Gomorronsol Castle, where we follow Little Ghost Laban, the kindest ghost in the world who is afraid of the dark. Together with Little Prince Bus and Labolina, many super scary adventures await Laban.
Nesbitt Spoon, who's a bit of a nebbish, tells us about his day, which is fairly average up until the moment that his doctor tells him he has only five minutes left to live.
A woman ponders over the strange coincidences that made her forefathers and -mothers meet and create the premises for her becoming the person that she is.
Animation with coloured salt by Aleksandra Korejwo. Music by Johann Strauss performed by the Strauss Festival Orchestra.
A love story set to a baroque score, HARLEQUIN is a delicate black-and-white ballet rendered through exquisitely detailed silhouettes.
Italian airship engineer Umberto Nobile enjoys a quiet life with his beloved dog Titina. One day, Norwegian explorer superstar Roald Amundsen contacts him and orders an airship to conquer The North Pole.
MUTE is an animated short about a world populated by people born without a mouth. When a gory accident leads to the discovery they are able to create their own mouth by cutting themselves, this releases an enthusiastic chain reaction among the population…
Several scary black-and-white animated segments in different styles appeal to our fear(s) of the dark.
The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.
A little man lives in an old suitcase. One day he finds a new friend - an old blind man. The little man jumps into the blind man's pocket. With music, the pocket man helps the blind man walk and see things in the street. Both are very happy together.
A lonely fisherman drifts into haunted waters in search of food and finds much more than he bargained for. Based on an Inuit folktale.
A socially awkward girl uses the local swimming pool as a wormhole into fantasy. She dives underwater where she imagines herself as a marine creature, alternately graceful and predatory. (As described by Simon Sellars, 2008) Created as part of the SBS series "Swim Between the Flags" in 2002.
An experimental film in which both sound and visuals were created entirely by Norman McLaren drawing directly upon the film with ordinary pen and ink. The main title is in eight languages. Rereleased with multilingual titles in 1949.
Don Poli, the patriarch of a family embedded in politics, faces the change of party in his state - after a hundred years in power - losing all his privileges. Humiliated and angry, he threatens to disinherit his family and leave to rebuild his life. This forces his children (Kippy, Ramses and Belén) to take extreme measures to ensure their future, causing everything that could go wrong to turn out worse.
Eyüp decides to cross mount Ararat looking for his aunt in Yerevan after following a madman's words. His aunt has also been expecting someone to come from behind this mount for many years. Eyüp cannot be sure about the woman he finds behind the blue door, whether it is his aunt or not because they can't understand each other.
Hüseyin Al Baldawi arrives in Brussels in August 2015. He has traveled thousands of kilometers until he got there from Iraq. A year after his arrival, he receives his residence permit and decides to go to Greece. This journey from Brussels to Athens involves the viewers on the difficulties faced by Hüseyin and thousands of other immigrants. While the story of Hüseyin is taking shape through the countries he travels, the forgotten people he meets and the selfish society of Europe give us many messages, as well.
The Year of Return is an initiative of the government of Ghana that is intended to encourage African diasporans to come to Africa to settle and invest in the continent. This film documents one diasporan family as they return to Africa.
Ember is a 21-year-old photography student, stubborn, confident and independent. Her biggest dream has always been to move out of her hometown - she hated it for as long as she could remember and never felt comfortable there. But as Ember fulfils her dream and moves away to a different city, she keeps coming back to the memories of her past life and introspecting her connection with her hometown.
Follows a youngster Kalai and his aspirations of becoming a 'Star' in the Tamil Film Industry. Born in a lower-middle-class family, will Kalai overcome all his struggles to emerge as a Star?
AA is a portrait of the dream diaries of Russian avant garde feminist poet and photographer Anna Alchuk.
Static images of an old country house are combined with voices of the past to evocative effect. Haunting and nostalgic, 'Return' conveys the life that exists in old, abandoned places.
An unfortunate highschooler finds an ancient book that summons Allentown's deadliest maniacs back from the dead.
A man dies of cancer—and then wakes up, decades in the future, because his body was cryogenically preserved. Now he’s not only cured of cancer, but also rejuvenated. And his wife is also alive again, restored to health and youth by miraculous future technology. It’s a post-scarcity future, in which the biggest problem is learning how to start over when everything is new and different.
Tonnemann lives in one of the wooden sheds at the far end of Islands Brygge, close to Copenhagen's landfill site. But in 1928, he wants to leave this environment behind – to go where the air is fresh and life may offer both security and meaning. He is already on his way with his packed suitcase to sign on to a long-distance boat when a lovely girl gets in his way with her little red sports car.
Return is a methodical construction of the approach of an individual towards an unseen goal, which assumes metaphorical significance. Viola moves toward the camera/viewer, pausing every few steps to ring a bell, at which point he is momentarily thrust back to his starting place, and then advanced again. Finally reaching his destination, he is taken through all of the previous stages in a single instant and returned to the source of his journey.
A woman encounters a star from another era.
A balls to the wall action film about Fast, the fastest person alive, who is also named Fast.