An essay in colour harmonics and visual overtones. Conceived and produced as part of the Images Film Festival's Minute Movies.
Social & External
After a night of heavy drinking a young man has a dream where an angel tells him the world will end if he doesn't make a sacrifice.
A bittersweet look at life’s many challenges, albeit as experienced by furry, feathered, and slimy creatures who sound and feel all too human.
A comic allegory in which a runaway "city" on legs matches wits with a wily farmer. A farmer has an encounter with a runaway "city" (which devours its environs). He deserts his rural home for the imagined joys of urban life.
A young alchemy apprentice tries to fix his master's creation discreetly.
During the holiday season, when the animals of the Central Park Zoo are preparing for Christmas, Private, the youngest of the penguins notices that the Polar Bear is all alone. Assured that nobody should have to spend Christmas alone, Private goes into the city for some last-minute Christmas shopping. Along the way, he gets stuffed into a stocking
A mushroom offers the animals of the forest, an ant, a butterfly and a mouse shelter from the storm. A little rabbit, who wants to hide from the fox, also finds a place with him. The mushroom grows, stretches and stretches as it sees the good will of the other animals to help the hare.
You are locked in an empty room with a camera. The room is dark. It is raining hard outside. You are a subject of Complex, a scientific experiment, whose purpose is to test the limits of the human mind. The objective is simple: stay alive.
Chiyo brings a video camera to school for a class project. But when Tomo gets a hold of it, heaps of trouble happen all over campus.
The story of Samuel de Champlain's futile search for a passage to China in North America and his later founding of Quebec.
Based on a comic monologue performed by Stanley Holloway on radio and records.
Bear's hat is gone. None of the animals have seen it. He is starting to become despondent, until his memory is sparked by a deer who asks just the right question.
Martín, a young urban raver, is involved in a strange accident on the road on his way to a party in the middle of the Argentine Pampas. Finding refuge in a mysterious country grocery store and sheltered by two strange locals, Martín's paranoia begins to take over him. As the hours progress, his perception begins to distort, unleashing disturbing visions that will lead him to confront the supernatural forces that hide in the night.
A plea against the building of walls that divide and restrict freedoms through the animation of 102 graffiti by artists from around the world painted on the largest section of the Berlin Wall.
An early short film by the Czech animator Pavel Koutsky.
In an isolated and unknown place during a war, a child is forced to flee. Along the way, he sees horse corpses everywhere. Only dead horses. Why? Why have the horses decided to kill themselves?
The Sisyphus-like story by two co-authors is set in the present. The hero’s boulder is his everyday duties and the need to earn money and look after the family. The dynamic story imitates for instance the rapid pans and tilts of a camera by blurring the picture, the final intensity of changes implicates the stereotypical working routine. Animation on translucent layers alternates with total drawing.
A short film by the Czech animator Vaclav Mergl.
While drawing, Rui is surprised by the presence of Epsilon, a mysterious girl with magical powers.
La Maison en Petits Cubes tells the story of a grandfather's memories as he adds more blocks to his house to stem the flooding waters.
Scrat tries to finish his rather large collection of acorns when things start going nutty.
A playful exercise in intermittent animation and spasmodic imagery. Playing with the laws relating to persistence of vision and after-image on the retina of the eye, McLaren engraves pictures on blank film creating vivid, percussive effects.
This is a hand-painted film which has been photographically step-printed to achieve various effects of brief fades and fluidity-of-motion, and makes partial use of painted frames in repetition (for "close-up" of textures). The tone of the film is primarily dark blue, and the paint is composed (and rephotographed microscopically) to suggest galactic forms in a space of stars.
In this powerful abstract film with a soundtrack of African drum music, Lye scratched "white ziggle-zag-splutter scratches" on to black leather, using a variety of tools from saw teeth to arrow heads. The first version of the film won a major award at the International Experimental Film Festival Held in Brussels in 1958 in association with the World's Fair. Stan Brakhage described the film as "an almost unbelievably immense masterpiece".
In this extraordinary short animation, Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren painted colours, shapes, and transformations directly onto their filmstrip. The result is a vivid interpretation, in fluid lines and colour, of jazz music played by the Oscar Peterson Trio.
I made this film especially for you. I needed to check in with you. I needed to tell you how I feel.
A visual representation, in four parts, of one man's internalization of "The Divine Comedy." Hell is a series of multicolored brush strokes against a white background; the speed of the changing images varies. "Hell Spit Flexion," or springing out of Hell, is on smaller film stock, taking the center of the frame. Montages of color move rapidly with a star and the edge of a lighted moon briefly visible. Purgation is back to full frame; blurs of color occasionally slow down then freeze. From time to time, an image, such as a window or a face, is distinguishable for a moment. In "existence is song," colors swirl then flash in and out of view. Behind the vivid colors are momentary glimpses of volcanic activity.
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.
This direct-to-draw animated film on 35 mm film features the imagery of 10 European directors in a collective project. Each produced 1 minute of animation on film, drawing directly onto it in his or her own style.
Short film to a song of love lost and rediscovered, a woman sees and undergoes surreal transformations. Her lover's face melts off, she dons a dress from the shadow of a bell and becomes a dandelion, ants crawl out of a hand and become Frenchmen riding bicycles. Not to mention the turtles with faces on their backs that collide to form a ballerina, or the bizarre baseball game.
Experience these masterpieces of storytelling from the creative minds that brought you Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and many more. With revolutionary animation, unforgettable music and characters you love, these dazzling short films have changed the face of animation and entertainment and are sure to delight people of all ages for years to come.
In stop-motion animation, a wardrobe moves through the countryside. It arrives in a house, a child's voice recites Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," and various objects, such as toys and dolls, move about, disintegrate, and play out archetypal scenes. Like Carroll's verse, the images are at once familiar and unfamiliar. A child's play suit, hanging in the wardrobe, becomes the adventure's protagonist.
It's the 1890s, and Donald is riding his penny-farthing bicycle to see Daisy when Chip 'n Dale make fun of him. It quickly escalates into a full-fledged war between Donald and the chipmunks.
In Don Hertzfeldt's second student film, a hapless cartoon character is dragged through a spectrum of cinematic situations by his frustrated animator.
This short film visualizes potential human exploration of the Solar System through a sequence of digitally reconstructed environments based on real astronomical data and spacecraft imagery. Depicting locations such as Mars, the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, and other celestial bodies, it presents speculative human activity grounded in existing scientific ideas, accompanied by narration from Carl Sagan’s "Pale Blue Dot".
Animated shapes dance to Cuban music. This was one of the first animations to be painted directly onto the film.
Three sleepy babies in a clog-boat sailing through the night sky attempt to fish with candy canes for very smart fish.
Marcel the shell gives an outline of his life.
A series of dark and troubling events forces Bill to reckon with the meaning of his life… or lack thereof.
Donald is an admiral on a seagoing voyage with his nephews in which they encounter a ravenous shark.