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Two thieves are reluctant to steal but their evil boss doesn’t want to hear it. So the two clumsy burglars, who would much rather go dancing somewhere, have to break into an abandoned house. Once inside, they stumble across a gramophone and release a bunch of ghosts from it. This musical slapstick was made by three students of the Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín as their graduate film.

In this ani-doc, the director decided to focus on a curious phenomenon from the world of ornithology. The film explains why cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. The film’s visual style, illustrated and expanded by the commentary, was filmed with playful exaggeration and a hefty dose of humour.

This metaphoric story made using various natural materials is set at the seaside. Its director was inspired by the words of a friend dying of cancer: ‘Our life is like a wave of the sea hitting the shore and we are the drops thrown by the waves on the ground.’ The film was his graduate project at the Graphic College Jihlava.

This fairy tale will please mainly young audiences, as the director used drawings which are comprehensible and close to children. One morning, a magical rock appears in the backyard of a kindergarten. As soon as the children find it, a magical adventure starts, which can soften even a greedy professor.

This atmospheric and visually sharp and raw film is an adaptation of the old Norse poem from the Poetic Edda, Thrymskvida. In it, the famous hammer of Thor, the god of thunder, is stolen by a giant named Thrym. In addition to studying animation in Zlín, the director studied scientific illustration in Brno.

This playfully stylised, somewhat modern and somewhat traditional fairy tale is about a talented musician. He is banished from the kingdom’s capital and the guards destroy his precious instrument as the princess was enchanted by his music but disenchanted by his looks. But that can change.

Planet Earth has turned into a lifeless desert with no living organisms, so a special rescue mission needs to be conducted. The mission is led by none other than the most powerful mushroom in the universe with the ability to resurrect Earth. In this interactive VR created in collaboration with a team of mycologists, the viewer becomes the mushroom saviour itself.

In their latest project, leading VR studio Baobab adapted the classic fairy tale about Baba Yaga. The wicked witch, who cursed a life-giving forest, is voiced by Kate Winslet. The viewer becomes Magda, daughter of a mortally ill queen. Magda must find a cure, face her fear and escape the malevolent witch’s bubbling cauldron.

A short-sighted boy with an accordion bigger than himself on his back sets out on an adventurous journey to save his sister who has fallen into the shadows. The most effective weapon the boy can use against darkness is music. The interactive story combines the game with nebulas, music and expressionist fairy-tale visuals.

The winner of last year’s Venice International Film Festival takes the viewer on a poetic journey to the household of a hangman who comes home after work. While exploring his place, we happen upon five wordless stories in which we become voyeurs of human intimacy and repeatedly face uncomfortable revelations. The project is inspired by a 1922 poem of the same name by Carl Sandburg.

Two brothers live in a strange surreal world where everything around them floats and falls like in a centrifuge. A fridge, a television, parts of a house. The brothers couldn’t be more different, yet they are close. They are even tied with a rope, so they don’t lose each other in the chaos. The viewer joins them in their world and becomes a part of their lives. But what happens when the brothers get separated one day?

This delicate story takes the viewer into a pastel world of a small child reminiscing about the complicated relationship with its mother. In individual memories, we find out that the single mother hit rock bottom, displayed fits of aggression and turned on the beloved child. A very personal story in which the viewer uses play cubes to rebuild painfully destroyed family trust and intimacy.

It all begins as an intimate family story. A young couple is expecting a child. They are preparing to become parents; they are putting together a crib. But the woman loses the baby. After some time, the situation repeats itself. The parents now believe that their babies are born in another dimension. This psychological sci-fi probe balancing between madness and mysticism is a virtual black hole into a traumatised human soul.

A mother must make a hard choice. Her child is seriously ill, but she can’t afford to buy the remedy from a shaman. So she takes her sword, bow and arrows and sets out to find a mysterious plant to make the cure. The story bordering between film and an interactive comic book is unique thanks to its panel composition and the fact that it was entirely illustrated in a virtual reality environment.

This animated monologue delivered in the COVID-19 state of emergency proves how strongly humans perceive their connection to nature during a time of forced isolation. This visually minimalist project is inspired by the Rorschach tests, which push the content of the monologue even closer to psychological self-analysis. This VR film is the latest project by US director Mika Johnson, who lives and works in the Czech Republic.

From some of the best puzzle designers in the world comes A Monster's Expedition, an adorable and relaxing open world puzzle adventure for monsters who love to learn about humans. By pushing trees over to create pathways, you’ll explore hundreds of islands near and far to learn about the history of ‛humanity’.

All of You is a cute, purely visual, accessible, family-friendly puzzle adventure game with unique gameplay. Play and pause each section of a level to unveil the correct path for the main character. Follow the journey of a clumsy chicken that will travel through all kinds of places in search of her lost chicks.

Carto is a charming adventure game centred around a unique, world-altering puzzle mechanic. Use this power to explore mysterious lands, help a quirky cast of characters and guide Carto on her journey back to her family.

The ground starts shaking, light bulbs are breaking – and something rather unusual is happening right behind the walls of your room. Equipped with nothing but wit and courage, you slowly descend into a world inhabited by avian folk and seemingly deadly furniture monsters.

Take on the role of a chef, bring your meal to perfection and perhaps you will receive praise from Mishka and Ned, the stars of the Hungry Bear Tales series. And that’s something!

The players in Moving Out take on the role of movers, moving marked furniture and appliances from a house to a moving truck within a time limit. Along the way, obstacles may be encountered. Objects may be thrown. The levels also have optional objectives, such as breaking all of the house's windows or packing an unmarked object.

Noita is a magical action rogue-lite set in a world where every pixel is physically simulated. Fight, explore, melt, burn, freeze and evaporate your way through a procedurally generated world using spells you've created yourself. Noita is inspired by underground classics such as Liero, falling sand games and modern rogue-likes, rogue-lites and lite-like-lites.

AD 673. Camelot has fallen. The jealous Sir Mordred has broken the fellowship of the Round Table with hatred and lies. Now King Arthur faces his final battle. Who will keep the dream of Camelot alive? Pendragon is a character-driven narrative strategy game from the creators of the multi-award-winning 80 DAYS and Heaven’s Vault.

Someday You’ll Return takes place in beautiful scenic areas of the Czech Republic. While they are not exact duplicates, CBE Software designers desired to capture the atmosphere of Bohemian nature. The game is a semi-open world with very clear landmarks so the players can always orientate themselves. The developers also implemented the famous Czech tourist navigation system dating back to the end of the 19th century.

Pilfer from pirates, conspire with cardinals and perform miracles with an incompetent magician. The Procession to Calvary is a Pythonesque adventure game made from Renaissance paintings, and a spiritual successor to the critically acclaimed Four Last Things.

Tiny Money is set in a world where the physical size of characters changes depending on their current financial situation. We play as Pete, a single 28-year-old bank clerk who tries desperately not to disappear. Following the latest payment, he has shrunk so much that he can fit inside a coffee machine and is charged with the task of making his boss a cup of coffee.

Build quaint island towns with curved streets. Build small hamlets, soaring cathedrals, canal networks or sky cities on stilts. Block by block. No goal. No real gameplay. Just plenty of building and plenty of beauty. That’s it. Townscaper is an experimental passion project. More of a toy than a game.

Tukoni is a point-and-click puzzle adventure based on a series of award-winning books by Ukrainian artist Oksana Bula. Play as Tukoni, the forest spirits, as you meet unique characters, solve captivating puzzles, craft new items and explore a magical world filled with kindness.

You’re far from home. You’re not sure how you got here. But you do know one thing: it’s your calling to help your new friends, any way you can. But not all of them are cooperative. From the award-winning studio that brought you GNOG comes Winding Worlds, a finger-wiggling puzzle-adventure about a girl, a Wurm and how to say goodbye.

Bodyless legs walk through a meadow with spring flowers, clock dials rotate along the way and Lizzy’s long hair gets entangled in rays of sunlight. Euphoria, visions, geysers of imagination. Lizzy sets out on a mysterious journey while reading a letter from her boyfriend whom she hasn’t seen for quite some time. What goes on in her head? Where will the memories of her boyfriend lead her? A surreal trip between a nostalgic memento and a dream.

Jakarta, 1980. We find ourselves before a small house with a porch. From time to time a breeze comes up and someone passes by. The neighbourhood is peaceful, an ideal place to live. But as time goes by, it changes; we see a growing number of shops, mosques, people, cars and also demonstrations and political unrest. We observe a static animated time-lapse shot of this neighbourhood in Jakarta, which in 40 years has become a symbol of change of the values of contemporary society.

This metaphorical abstract film has us fly through the galaxy next to a huge cube which could be a spaceship. But as it flies, this ship, a symbol of stability and power, begins to fall apart into hundreds of steel plates endangering and to some extent also hypnotising us. Are we dead? Have we reached the end of our spiritual journey? And can fragments of a universe give birth to new life?

Four deities and each of them recites a different poem on the way through an allegorical pantheon. But they all have one thing in common – they all protect the LGBTQ community. From the ruler of online sexual apps, the hypermasculine god Agoretz with a huge penis, through transgender and genderfluid deities all the way to mythical warrior women against the patriarchy. Will the gods succeed in warning the world against the enduring homophobia?

Only a few days remain before the Earth shatters into pieces. Chaos everywhere, the cities lie in ruins. The year is 2068 and humanity needs to act now. The only option is an exodus to another planet. But not everyone gets a special passport entitling them to board the rescue ships. This post-apocalyptic film tells the dramatic story of a family trying everything to get to the last rescue ship.

The painting Saturn Devouring His Son is one of Goya’s most terrifying works. This immersive and dark VR film takes us into the painting and the viewer becomes a child fleeing from his father, who wants to dispose of the child for fear of being overthrown. The film is considered to be one of the best VR adaptations of a work of art, which have recently become a specific sub-genre in the field of virtual reality.

‛What does it mean to be a boy? And what does it mean to be a girl?’ asked the director of the popular film Long Way North (2015) after seeing a documentary about a famous woman from US history named Martha Jane Cannary, who was better known as Calamity Jane. It is the childhood of this unique personality and the events that shaped her (back then) considerably nonconformist personality, which director Rémi Chayé portrays in this artistically captivating film. Along with her father and siblings, little Martha travels to Oregon, their dream land, where there is work and a good life for their entire wagon train. But their journey gets complicated when her father is injured in an accident. Martha sees a logical solution – she takes over the reins of the family wagon. However, such a thing is inconceivable for the wagon master, so Martha learns lassoing and riding skills in secret so she can trump the wagon master’s son, who was put in charge of the wagon instead of her. But she’s accused of stealing precious items and loses the support of the wagon train and her family. Martha isn’t one to stand such injustice; she sets out to clear her name and earn the respect she deserves. The film won the Annecy Cristal for Best Feature Film.

Arachnid Hominid is a unique new species created by the film’s director Brian Andrews with x-ray photographs – it is a hybrid of a human and a spider. In this visual experiment, we look through an x-ray filter and watch the story of a hominid mother trying to protect her children in a hostile environment. This non-conformist film somewhere between a horror and a family drama is a sequel to an animated short film from 2012 titled Hominid.

Using the feeling of anxiety, a meditative metaphysical state, hallucinations and abstractions, this experimental VR film introduces a new perspective on social care for the elderly in the UK. This philosophical and experimental film points out its themes only abstractly but puts them into concrete settings such as a cathedral or an apartment that we visit with the soul of a person nearing the end of their life’s journey.

Odyssey 1.4.9 is a VR homage to Kubrick’s opus magnum 2001: A Space Odyssey which focuses on the mysterious monolith causing all the peripeties in the film. This abstract animated VR film uses archive footage from Kubrick’s film and has it scanned in a galactic tunnel by the mysterious monolith, which uncovers further visual and sensual dimensions of this iconic movie.

The director’s interest in journalism and social issues is reflected in her series of short ani-docs that try to answer a tricky question: how does one become homeless? The authentic testimony of Rob, who lost his close relatives and repeatedly struggled with a serious illness and drugs, is highlighted by a simple artistic style.

Little Julie doesn’t fit in with the rest of her class. But when her school accepts Émile, who is autistic, the two outsiders form a fragile bond. A bond which – in the environment of inclusion efforts – is repeatedly threatened by the prejudice of their classmates as well as the distrust and system failures of the adults.

The meadows and hills of the countryside are burdened with the heavy summer air. A ginger cat gets lost in the tall grass and golden fields. Searching for him is a boy whose memories of summer and images from childhood form this meditative film with an unmistakable, intoxicating atmosphere and the typical style of Italian directors Magda Guidi and Mara Cerri.

The used computer game aesthetic puts the theme of this very topical film into a disturbing context. Adding or removing an animal or an entire species was never easier. Virtual reality permeates the real problems of the present thanks to a cyborg whose nostalgia seemingly reflects a belated environmental grief. 

The birthday of the oldest member of the family is a good reason to spend time together once in a while. After all, Grandpa lives in the country all by himself and away from the world! There’s no doubt that the company of his closest relatives will brighten his days full of boredom… and peace… and quiet humble contentment.

This wacky story of a not very competent but all the more confident investigator is a parody on the famous detective novels in the style of Sherlock Holmes. In this adaptation of a short story by Croatian writer and LGBT+ activist Mima Simić, Gloria Scott (originally a character by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) investigates the murder of a professor in London.

His fascination with Tahiti is mentioned in every biography of French painter Paul Gauguin. This film, however, re-enacts the life of Annah, who was sold to France from Java when she was 13 years old and served the famous painter without payment, as his maid, cook, model for his famous painting and more…

The film debut of Portuguese painter Alexandra Ramires utilises a captivating and disturbing artistic style enhancing the film’s surreal atmosphere. Strange, proportionally unbalanced figures look for a place to fit their bodies into and a way to adapt appropriately to reality and find balance.

This humorous film shows you what happens when someone tries to interfere with God’s carefully laid-out plan for an individual. Soon, the Apocalypse in the form of a voracious monster starts to threaten the entire world and our main heroine has her hands full with rectifying her mistake. But what about her own fate?

The Iranian director’s artistic style expressively mirrors the feelings brought on by rejection, distrust and mockery by a group of people to whom the main hero of this dark psychological film looks up. This film about a determined effort to fit in won the Special Jury Prize at the Hiroshima International Animation Festival 2020.

In his latest short film, the director of Jacob, Mimmi and the Talking Dogs (2019, in competition at Anifilm 2020) focuses on a brave decision of a member of a guard of honour. He refuses to leave his post even when a natural disaster strikes.

Mysterious alliances between members of a secluded community living on a rocky shore and the story of a lucky boy named Tommy who finds gorgeous socks that look like they were made for playing. The Kazakh director, who studied at the Russian SHAR Studio (co-founded by Y. Norstein) uses simple and clean drawings to portray a disturbing story.

What happens if idioms acquire concrete and literal visual forms? Will their meanings withstand such transformations? What new meanings and jokes can they incorporate in their new visual forms? Will they survive? The director of this playful film reflects on the consequences of literality. These puns are, however, almost non-transferrable to a different language.

In this bitterly metaphoric but all the more truthful film, the director explores the theme of returning to one’s roots to point out many social patterns and issues we encounter at the margins and elsewhere. Finding the courage to change where your life is headed is not easy whether you’re a zombie, a witch or a mere human being.

After losing the people closest to him, the film’s hero – the director’s alter ego – shuts himself away in a safe world of memories. In this world, time has stopped and everyone he has lost is still alive. As years go by, the world in his mind keeps on growing and is being populated by uninvited literary characters and heroes of animated films from his childhood. But the characters, who are the same age in all of their stories, suddenly start ageing. When the protagonist realises that there is no such thing as eternal youth, he decides to return to reality. Luckily, he has all these amazing characters accompanying him on his complicated journey.

This magical and imaginative journey through the subconscious mind of Mariusz Wilczyński is characterised by mesmerising images and music by Tadeusz Nalepa which are irreplaceable and complement the film’s melancholy atmosphere. In his feature debut, this self-taught director of many acclaimed short films imprinted not only his memories, but also allusions to contemporary Poland. After eleven years of work, he created an artistic opus which gives the viewers no time to breathe but in return offers a unique and unrepeatable personal experience. The film premiered at the Berlin IFF.

The latest film by Frédéric Schuld, whose previous film Carlotta’s Face (2018) was screened at more than 200 festivals, is again an ani-doc. Schuld was inspired by a cruel practice that used to be the norm in England: small children were used as human chimney sweeps despite a very high risk of often tragic injuries. The result is a disturbing film revealing a practice that is almost forgotten today.

A man and a woman assure each other that they’re happy, but the film shows an entirely different thing: a portrait of the gradual, irreversible disintegration of their relationship. While their apartment is flooded with water, the confines of their bodies fall into decay and there is no longer any difference between pain and pleasure. The film’s metaphoric images are underlined by suppressed colours, disturbing sounds and surrealist spectacles.

This ironic film with a fitting point and elements of psychological drama follows the story of a young man named Guillaume who unexpectedly and openly resorts to murder. While serving his sentence, which acts as a probe into life in prison, the young man forgets why he killed his friend Horacio. But that changes when he regains his freedom.

This refreshing film was made by the renowned Japanese filmmaker Atsushi Wada, who is known for his trademark style and sense for the humorous yet at the same time rather unhinged behaviour of his characters with an emphasis on instincts and corporeality. This time, the film in which we watch the synchronised exercise of a dog and his owner is an inconspicuous study of a dog’s body.

This extraordinary Mexican experiment uses a combination of cutout and computer animation.

According to the official description given by the Central Committee, this is a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist revision of the Allegory of the Cave, filled with talking animals who are arriving late and bourgeois queens who would like to see you without your head, just like Plato intended.

Croatian director Lucija Mrzljak studied animation at several schools abroad (including Prague) but eventually settled in Tallinn, where she now works in the famous Eesti Joonisfilm studio. Inspired by the Estonian weakness for absurd situations and hard-to-grasp phenomena, which entirely organically become parts of the heroes’ dailiness, and drawing with simple lines, she made a captivating film about relationships and the longing for freedom.

A scene from a family dinner which is anything but idyllic. For many years, a son sits at the table with his parents, listens to their well-intentioned advice and eats food so good he wants to throw up. Overcome by relentless repetition of words and sentences, prejudice and hypocrisy, trapped in an endless loop, his mind wanders off. For her collage-like film, the director chose a theatrical style reminiscent of musicals.

The first collaboration between the prominent British director Joana Quinn and the Canadian NFB resulted in a film starring the director’s favourite tragicomic character Beryl, an ageing factory worker obsessed with drawing. Scenes depicting her childhood, family relations and artistic efforts are full of specific humour and entrancing exaggeration. And as is typical for the director, the film boasts an unmistakeable and vivid animation style.

The director of this fresh and pleasantly playful film animated on various surfaces set herself a single goal: the film’s scenes should reflect the poorly set up Asian education system. Students want to get to university at all costs, without even thinking about what they will do afterwards.

This playful film is the director’s graduation film from the French school La Poudrière. A bus full of people on a trip is stopped by a policeman who isn’t satisfied with the bribe he is offered for granting the bus passage. To continue on their journey, the passengers will have to join forces. The film is characterised by likeable naïve drawings and many subtle gags.

This graduate film follows a dialogue between the filmmaker and his saba (Hebrew for Grandpa) in the last chapter of his life. Saba Beno tells his grandson his life story, beginning when he was a child, but in his own humorously ironic way, which the director depicted with a simple and yet inventive artistic style.

For their film full of erotic symbols and sexual energy, the three directors chose the theme of loneliness and transformations of personal relationships caused by the Covid pandemic. A woman wanders through an unusual landscape and blissfully enjoys touching plants. But that stops when this dreamland is ravaged by a strange infection destroying everything that brought pleasure.

This considerably claustrophobic film is set in an overpopulated city in South China. A man returns to his miniature flat and would like to rest. But he is not alone in this household in which personal space isn’t counted in square metres but rather in centimetres. The authors excellently portrayed the feeling of anxiety bordering on madness to which this situation must inescapably lead.

A high society celebration is taking place in a round hall. The record spins, the gramophone starts playing. Guests are eating and drinking their fill and lose themselves on the dance floor. And then they go back to eating, drinking, dancing… This frolicking cycle could go on and on in this distinctly stylised black-and-white film. 

For many people, today’s chaotic world evokes feelings of insecurity and the inability to make decisions. But what if people allow their fates to be decided by chance? The heroine of this film immerses herself in her subconscious mind to explore the unknown aspects of her own self. The director of this surreal, hard-to-grasp film has a penchant for psychology and philosophy.

The story of this captivating film follows Conor, a boy living a fast-paced and free roaming life with his friends on the streets of Dublin. Though a life without responsibilities is great fun, it can’t keep his head above the chaos of his poverty-stricken home. When he is torn between what he should do and what his hectic life pushes him into, he doesn’t always have a good choice to make.

The title of this film comes from the book Liquid Love by sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. In her film, the director explores two opposites: freedom and the need to own things. Can these worlds representing strong human desires coexist without a constant tension? This visually remarkable film borders on non-narrative animation.

After summer camp ends, two friends named Anna and Manon decide to go live near the sea and never come back. This realistic and sensitively made holiday film explores the clash of fantastic child imagination heading to an absolute ideal with the prosaic reality.

A young girl sees the world around her as brittle, depraved and ugly. She lives in a cold war where the weapons are not guns or bombs, but the alienation, aimlessness, selfishness and depreciation of the people. The director, who also illustrates books for children, used a slightly naïve and richly colourful artistic style.

This original puppet film made by a student of FAMU in Prague is a peculiar love story taking place among heaps of garbage. In a peopleless world with a pink-violet glow, we see dead and decaying creatures controlled by other creatures that are still alive. Every end can be a new beginning here.

This music video for Camp Saint Helene, made by Ben Clement, is a remarkable spectacle. The band’s nostalgic sound, reminiscent of‘60s psychedelic rock, was compatible with Clement’s process of animation: a form of non-camera filmmaking, or direct animation, a common method in experimental filmmaking.

This melancholy music video in shades of blue is characterised by fluid animation portraying many metamorphoses. After a study stay in Taipei, the director decided to focus on frame-by-frame animation. In her music video for Elena Steri, she uses the method to capture the fragility of the soul, the restlessness of our thoughts and the power of emotions.

A dreamy computer land inhabited by animals that like to party and frequent museums, much like the best of us. This quirky music video for World Brain’s instrumental song shows a world where nothing is the way that we are used to. The author created the world and its inhabitants using an unusual 3D animation style.

‘The burning love of Bill the cock and Floyd the dog is just like every other romance. I'm really sorry that a bunch of dwarfs in a van seem to have a problem with it,’ says Jan Piskač, a member of The Ribs, who directed this original Western-style music video (a sort of variation on Easy Rider).

The acclaimed music video director, with experience from many commissioned works, likes to experiment and combine techniques. This applies also to his dreamy and slightly sorrowful music video for IDK You Yet, in which he reflects upon the complexity of relationships in the age of computers and social media.

With a familiar melody, this Argentinian music video takes us to a world animated with a zoopraxiscope. In combination with other animation techniques, the director created an unusual music video using not only fascination with ancient animation devices, but also hand-drawn and stop-motion animation.

In this poetic music video, the Chinese director decided to portray the miracle of water, which circulates in nature just like blood circulates in our bodies. This music video, set in a fantastic world, makes sporadic use of colours but definitely not imagination.

On the borderless map of a magical planet, little beings pick, brush, weave, fish and collect elements from their natural environment to sustain their lives as a group. In this original music video, a surreal landscape transforms into other, no less remarkable images which the viewers are soon unable to follow.

The director of the festival favourite short film Egg recently decided to make a music video in her trademark black-and-white style. She stayed loyal to the theme of her successful film and once again focused on the emotions connected to perceiving one’s (female) body, but this time in an imaginative universe.

I’ll always is a sensual story about love, passion, assurance and animated, written and sung promises drawn on an incredible 2,889 envelopes. The music video is full of metamorphoses and the author used the demanding technique of total animation to animate transitions between environments and between the abstract and the concrete.

In this original music video by a renowned director, we see a girl wandering around a mystical world with strange creatures. The director is known for her unmistakeable artistic style which, in combination with her sense for absurd situations, contributes to the success of her short films. She drew and coloured the music video by hand.

This music video was created for François Poitou’s latest album, titled Le Sec et la Lune. It depicts the dreariness of large housing estates, feelings of loneliness, alienation and anonymity in overpopulated cities and the desire to return to nature and find harmony and simplicity. The melancholy atmosphere of the clip is underscored by black-and-white animation.

When money talks, who is listening? A torrent of tattered animated objects and shredded collage excavates the headlines as the death knell sounds for the status quo in this mournful dirge.

The animation was created frame by frame and includes stop-motion objects as well as collages on thousands of individual sheets of black paper.

This slightly disturbing music video was made by a director with a penchant for non-narrative and experimental projects. His music video takes us to a dark place where many objects of everyday use as well as works of art sink into darkness. And it seems there is no way back.

This music video by an experienced Polish filmmaker, author of many animated films, is based on a legend about a girl who starred in a famous porn movie. His simple style and drawings animated on recycled paper perfectly match the theme of the joyless story.

In a time of superstition and magic, a young apprentice hunter, Robyn Goodfellowe, journeys to Ireland with her father to wipe out the last wolf pack. While exploring the forbidden lands outside the city walls, Robyn befriends a free-spirited girl, Mebh, a member of a mysterious tribe rumoured to have the ability to transform into wolves by night. As they search for Mebh’s missing mother, Robyn uncovers a secret that draws her further into the enchanted world of the Wolfwalkers and risks turning into the very thing her father is tasked to destroy.

Wolfwalkers is the highly anticipated new feature film from the renowned Irish studio Cartoon Saloon and its similarly renowned filmmakers. Director Tomm Moore’s filmography already includes two unforgettable feature films (The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea) and many awards and Academy Award nominations. Ross Stewart, the co-director of Wolfwalkers, worked with Moore on his first film.

A young couple drive through picturesque Provence. Nils is about to introduce Flora to his parents. But one of his remarks triggers a series of unexpected associations in the girl’s mind and Flora has the opportunity to explore the terrifying depth of her doubts. This relationship film made with the ease of a music video is reminiscent of a road movie.

This film offers a very personal and sincere insight into the world of a new mother swamped with new tasks and worries and trying to grasp her new role as well as she can. It seems, however, that this task is very challenging and even unmanageable. This film is a humorous and deeply truthful testimony to the chaos caused in life by a newborn who is alternately crying and calm, hungry and full, awake and asleep.

A seemingly sleepy spring afternoon is filled with peculiarities and oddities. Mr. Ping from the Chinese restaurant has died and the parrot cage is empty. Jason convinces his friend Kevin to look for the exotic birds. He sees an opportunity to make a small fortune… But instead, their friendship will be put to a test. The story of this atmospheric film is a chain of more or less absurd situations.

This slightly odd, yet humorous film by a young Ukrainian director (she completed her studies in design in 2017) tells the story of a lonely mermaid who likes to watch people in their bathrooms through the piping. But one day, her voyeurism goes awry and our heroine, blinded by love, enters a man’s apartment. And that’s when things start happening.

Joe Cappa conceived his directorial debut as an original horror story with a feeling for the atmosphere, disturbing details and various traits inseparably linked to this genre. It’s night-time and a storm is raging outside. In an empty apartment, a newly acquired puppy trembles in fear, terrorised by the deceased pets of this strange household.

This thrilling drama about being devoured by the system, rebellion and family stigma is set in a town where the only people who stand a chance are the ones who willingly have their faces disfigured by masks. A girl named Quiq believes that the surgery is her chance to lead a contented life. Unlike her younger brother. The Town is a daring independent Chinese film, which received awards at Annecy and other festivals.

An elderly man looks after his paralysed wife. His daughter helps him, trying to balance the care with her work in a hospital and her family life. Everyone has a different view on how to properly care for the sick, which often causes arguments.  The film portrays the hopelessness of the end of a life with uncompromising authenticity.

Ant Hill is the story of the end of humanity from the perspective of ants. Rebellious female K99980335 longs for a different future, as she loathes the monotonous, machine-like nature of the colony and its rules. But when her wish is suddenly and cruelly fulfilled it is too late to take it back. A cruelly humorous film with Marek Náprstek’s unmistakeable artistic style.

Memories is a short animation produced as inspiration of music. The story is shown through varicoloured fluid images with symbolic meanings. The director chose the technique of traditional animation, which enabled him to create smooth movement and unexpected transformations of selected motifs.

To portray the captivating life under water, the director chose claymation. Slightly translucent malleable blue material transfers smoothly from the underwater world to the world above the surface, interconnected by matter. In her music video for the Polish avant-folk band, the director was inspired by a Japanese haiku by Matsuo Bashō.

The young Slovak director made this music video for a rapper known as Prezident Lourajder, who usually performs in his typical mask. In the clip we follow our masked hero as he wanders around his mansion. What does it mean to be truly isolated?

It explores the perspective of a teenager as she experiences the tremors of love as they colour her teenage heart for the first time. Seeds represent birth and rebirth, as does the journey of love. Every woman has the right to love and be loved, so please be proud of your courage to pursue love!

In Wishbone Zoe’s hand-drawn animated music video for heavy avant-jazz Western MA shredders Fred Cracklin, exploited mine workers make an effort to ‘boar-ganise’. This dramatic music video is characterised by striking colours, boars with drills on their snouts and rugged animation, which is exactly what the song needed.

Jan Drozda, experienced director of many music videos for various Czech bands, made this music video using only the Unreal Engine during the first wave of the Covid pandemic to which he alludes directly as well as indirectly. Apocalyptic timelessness, lethargy and restricted camera movement illustrate the feelings most of us have experienced.

He wants it all. It’s not enough. It’s raining lemons and the protagonist walks through a magical garden. In her music video for an American indie rock band, the director used her trademark pop-art and psychedelic style, which can also be seen in her commissioned work for Adult Swim and Gucci.

This is an animated music video for alternative rock band Lion on Tiger, from Scotland. The video is built around a couple with really large plasticine heads having a heated argument in their apartment. The heads were created animating plasticine over black-and-white live-action footage displayed on an analogue TV screen.

Visuals in this music video that are at times horror-like are in contrast with the calm melodic song by a South Korean musician called Peejay. In the music video, we see a scared boy who is exposed to sudden space transformations. Various symbolic and mythologic characters come to life and it seems that they hold the boy’s life in their hands.

A trip of a lonely suburban good-for-nothing seeking inner peace among blocks of flats, garages and car parks oscillates between the Zen ecstasy of abandoned subway vestibules and an earthquake. The music video is like a hangover at Stodůlky, somewhere between a hymn and a growl. This black-and-white music video for a French-Czech band was made by a graduate of the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.

The music video for Josh Kimbrough’s song ‘Glowing Treetops’ from his latest album Slither, Soar & Disappear was inspired by Wendell Berry's poem Elegy. The melancholy instrumental song is accompanied by appropriately stylised hand-drawn animation portraying falling leaves and the sun being replaced by rain.

Łona and Webber present their second single: ‘#nikiforszczecinski’ – a tribute to street art in all its forms. The song tells the story of a street artist from Szczecin who arranged his works from newspaper clippings, plants, candles, bricks and plush rats. The window sill and the gate of the tenement building in which he lived served as his very own exhibition space. The creator of this video – Lump – is one of the most recognisable street art artists in Poland.

For the song He Won’t Hold You by multi-Grammy winner Jacob Collier, the Brazilian director animated a series of atmospheric paintings. Just like the song, the music video offers two points of view on dealing with a breakup. Colours appear only at the song’s consensual finale.

This joyfully colourful music video for the singer Youlï was made by a graduate of the well-established Budapest school MOME. Its original and elaborate artistic style is dominated by the singer herself, who was realistically drawn and placed into scenes from everyday life. The scenes may seem dismal at first, but eventually turn out to be optimistic just like the song itself.

Renowned French comics artist and writer Joann Sfar has successfully adapted his comic book series The Rabbi’s Cat (2011). After almost ten years, he returns with another adaptation of his own iconic work. Little Vampire is loosely based on his comic book series of the same name, known also in the Czech Republic.

The universe of Little Vampire is characterised by the way it plays with horror stereotypes. Not everything turns out the way the readers or viewers would expect. But the film doesn’t lack suspense or a sometimes more, sometimes less scary atmosphere. The titular protagonist isn’t thirsty for human blood and definitely doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He’s a kind-hearted boy who has been living for centuries in a seaside villa with other kind-hearted monsters. The problem is that Little Vampire is bored, he would like to go to school like other kids and he wants some friends his own age. He finds one in a lonely boy named Michel who lives with his grandparents. But what children of this age truly want is a real adventure. And our two heroes embark on an adventure – and a pirate one at that! Just like Sfar’s previous work, this film honours the artistic style of the comic book (although the shaky strokes of the original are bit more stable in the film), the characters’ playful design and the diversity of the settings. The film was nominated for the César Award and competed in the 2020 Annecy Festival.

The thoughts of the first president of the Czech Republic come to life in this student film made by a filmmaker from the Russian city of Magnitogorsk who, after finishing animation studies in Yekaterinburg, moved to Zlín to get his master’s degree at the Tomas Bata University. In this film, Havel’s inspirational thoughts are underlined by a clear and straightforward artistic style.

In her latest puppet film, this acclaimed Finnish director has the last Catalonian bullfighting arena redeveloped into a shopping mall. An old matador then has to make living in dubious nightclubs around Barcelona. One night, one of these nightclubs is visited by the bored president of Russia.

People can sometimes understand each other without using words. That is definitely the case of the two heroes of this pleasantly colourful film made by a student of the Tomas Bata University in Zlín. The two protagonists meet at a railroad crossing and together they spend several fragile moments in uninterrupted silence.

This film made by a FAMU student combines several animation techniques including photographically accurate images which contribute to this ani-doc’s authenticity. The truthfulness of her testimony is emphasised by the fact that the filmmaker herself suffered from anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder which is often hard to diagnose.

One day, a villager stops at a watering place and is horrified by what he sees. The water is unusually red. As indicated by the name, the film’s author, a graduate of the Higher School of Art in Ostrava, was inspired by the culture of Japan. Herumetto, a safety helmet, plays a very important part in this action story.

The austere black-and-white and geometrical artistic style of this film made by a Belarusian filmmaker underscores both the colours of the cube and the problems surpassing the film’s protagonist. What to do with the tricky puzzle? What if solving it brings new problems?

In her film experiment, a student from the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen who also teaches animation to children uses obsolete objects, plastic wrap, foil and an overhead projector to create various moods. They appeal to the viewers not only thanks to their visuality, but also thanks to a poem of the same name by Ewald Murrer.

Thanks to the unmistakeable style of the director, a student from the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, this critical essay on the anthropocentric nature of space colonisation is sarcastic and caustic.  Just as in his other films, he combines several techniques and materials, from drawings to the use of real objects to sculpting clay.

The author, a student of the Tomas Bata University in Zlín, says that the most important theme in her films is vomiting. However, The Fabulous Good-Looker is a personal and biting testimony about her brother who personalises 'hopelessness and self-pity', in which she combines various techniques and in addition to vomiting, she explores deeper topics.

The film is based on the two greatest works of Russian genius: A short story titled ‛The Nose’ by Nikolai Gogol, and composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s 1930 eponymous opera based on Gogol’s story. The film is dedicated to pioneers, innovators in art. People who are ahead of their time. And, most importantly, people who do not fear going against the tide even at the cost of personal well-being, and often life.

Director Andrey Khrzhanovskiy, a legend in Russian animation, takes viewers on a daring post-modern adventure lined with constant narrative digressions, allusions and anecdotes. Apart from the digressions and motifs, this requiem for Russian avant-garde is also rich in various filmmaking techniques. Cut-out animation and drawing are complemented by live action and documentary footage from archives and from the present day. The main characters of the film are writers Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Bulgakov, director Vsevolod Meyerhold and composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who gave the film’s director his personal permission to use his opera, thus the music plays a substantial part in it.

Miya and her cat Aristotle are hunters. In a dry zucchini field, they hunt cloud animals to secure enough moisture for their plants. All they have to do is tie the creatures like balloons above their dying crops. But during one hunting trip, one of the heavenly creatures charms Miya so much that she starts thinking about its fate.

A woman who can’t stand the passage of time turns herself into a black hole. A thousand unchanging years pass until finally, one day, the singularity awakens inside her. An immovable woman meets an unstoppable girl in this operatic quest to discover the beauty of transience and letting go.

An idyllic scene with a lush field and a grasshopper frolicking between the plants is suddenly disrupted by a gunshot. A huge deer was caught in a trap and had to be killed. A hunter surrounded in smoke bends over the lifeless body. A little girl watches his actions with displeasure.

Meticulous and mesmerising paint-on-glass animation is characteristic for this atmospheric film by the Polish director, who takes us on a bus ride one Monday afternoon. The melancholic ride through a rainy city reminds the main protagonist what it would be like to escape the everyday routine of jammed streets.

On a beautiful balmy night, Seolgi lies with her friends in tall grass and watches myriad stars above them. She can even see some falling stars. And along with them, the thoughts and the inner world of the main protagonist fall into darkness in this musical film full of black humour.

This horror story inspired by folk tales stars a cheerful and spontaneous girl named Rosa who would like very much to dance at a country dance, but no one wants to ask her. So when a mysterious stranger appears and gives her a pair of red shoes, they end up in a whirlwind of a dance. This film, made at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, references the Czech poetic tradition of K. J. Erben.

In French internment camps, Spanish fighters against the Franco government were often treated as criminals rather than people fleeing a cruel system. For some time, one of the camps, a place with poor hygienic conditions and limited access to food and water, was home to illustrator Josep Bartolí. One could say that – unlike others – he was lucky because he befriended one of the guards. But their friendship irritated other guards, who in turn put Bartolí and their compassionate colleague through the mill. The only way for Bartolí to cope with the hardships and separation from his love was to draw.

The time of Bartolí’s suffering and constant moral dilemmas inspired a French comic artist and cartoonist of the Le Monde daily, known as Aurel. Josep is his debut film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. The film uses captivating and bleak images from the internment camp and elsewhere to create static portrayals of certain moments as well as references to Bartolí’s work. Scenes from happier periods of Bartolí’s life, when he went to Mexico, where he became the lover of Frida Kahlo, then create an even sharper contrast.

The story behind the film Even Mice Belong in Heaven began in 2010 when director and graphic artist Denisa Grimmová came up with the idea to adapt Iva Procházková’s successful book into a puppet film. Its originality lies, among other things, in its approach to death, which the author can present to children with ease and playfulness.

The creative team approached the book with great ambitions, screenwriters added plotlines and characters and this Czech production became a co-production between four countries. After almost ten years of preparation, development, filming and post-production, viewers can look forward to a thrilling adventure set predominantly in the afterlife. Two animals, considered by their close friends to be weirdoes and outsiders, Quickfeet the mouse and Whitebelly the fox, have an accident and run into each other in animal heaven. Despite being arch-enemies in life, together they set out on a journey to overcome old sorrows, find a new beginning and develop an eternal friendship. The film offers not only an original story full of intense emotions but also an unforgettable spectacle enhanced by the puppet design, decorations, setting and meticulous animation.

Beyond Noh rhythmically animates 3,475 individual masks from all over the world, beginning with the distinctive masks of the Japanese Noh theatre and continuing on a cultural journey through ritual, utility, deviance and politics. The mesmerising experience is enhanced by a purely percussive soundtrack.

Dispersing fog reveals tree stumps. As it clears, the static shot shows more details of a mountain landscape with the remnants of houses. Only the soothing soundtrack of this contemplative film evokes the memories of life once nourished by this place. A village, just like a human being, is born out of love. A village, just like a human being, is ruined if left without love.

Film věnující se konstruktivistickému období Alexandra Vasiljeviče Mosolova a architektuře a filmu tohoto uměleckého směru sestává ze tří častí, které režisérka intuitivně pojmenovala Stíny, Pohyb a Objem. Díla, která složil tento skladatel vážné hudby pro děti, hrají mladí hudebníci, studenti Dětské umělecké školy Jakova Fliera. S nápadem vytvořit animované hudební album přišla Irina Margolina.

Poum Poum! is an animated musical film which celebrates the simple and childish joy of hitting drums, scribbling on paper using marker pens, splashing paint and making cracked cymbals screech. Poum Poum! finds chaos and mishaps amusing and aims at spreading a spontaneous and joyful creative energy.

Deep-sea organisms living in their specific environment have developed unusual forms and properties. By observing them, you have the impression that you are watching an otherworldly, fairy-tale world of dreams. The film is a creative interpretation of the underwater world, in which the author invites you to take part in a relaxing session. It is represented by luminescent clay, the closest thing to underwater organisms.

A destructive sequence with infinite consequences. The renowned Italian director built his ‛film-shot’ using borrowed footage of all kinds. In this less than one minute long, but nevertheless captivating video, he flies through many unrelated environments while playing with the ‘butterfly effect’ theory.

Fraktura is an abstract horror, evoking a unique German Expressionist atmosphere. It features a collection of lead type from the Gutenberg Museum, printed directly onto 35mm film using a letterpress. An original film score performed on a church organ completes this film, produced in the spirit of Murnau’s film Nosferatu and Stoker’s novel Dracula.

The sounds act as witnesses. They blur into memories, half-dreams, it is undecided if they are real or not. Fluctuation between imagination and reality. Pictures rocking in the mind, pulsating with dark emotions. A horrible secret in the raging winds of our cells.  This minimalist film evokes the feeling of being hypnotised.

An experimental ani-doc about the author’s personal experiences and observations during lockdown. At the beginning of Austria’s first lockdown he decided to shut himself up in his hometown of Salzburg to work on these animated chronicles that deal with the places where he grew up with but also with his thoughts and observations in March and June 2020.

The author works with the interaction of space in which we find ourselves, and the energies associated with it. The state of rest, then being torn out of it, then returning to it, forms a framed structure; it is about presenting this kind of duality and the balance between the two states. The work is based on artistic starting points, which is why he chose traditional hand-drawn animation. 

This playful short film uses simple building blocks provided by a young creator. His voice and sufficiently rhythmised first words are complemented by visual elements from his first drawings, which imply that we are watching the miracle of creation. Yoghurt turns into nothing less than the Milky Way.

This experimental short film was made as a graduation project in the Studio of Film and TV Graphics of the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. The author found the inspiration for her film when travelling through Scotland and she managed to transfer the country’s atmosphere to the viewers despite using only wool.

Senescence is a visceral depiction of the very human process of senescence; the condition and process of deterioration with age. The author alternates detailed shots from the inside and outside of the human body. She uses traditional hand-drawn animation accompanied by a sometimes relaxed and sometimes chillingly naturalistic soundtrack.

This slightly disturbing, ambiguous video was made by Faiyaz Jafri, a specialist in 3D CGI animation. The dominant motif of this video is a woman wearing a white leotard and a helmet, looking like a cheerleader. Her figure is multiplied many times and it moves in a cyclical rhythm. According to the author, the mass of lifeless bodies is a choreographed vision of the future.

Liza is a predominantly abstract film made using the traditional technique of direct animation. It also makes use of another popular technique – it animates a specific musical composition. In this case, it is a visual transcription of a composition by George Gershwin. This (along with colour and movement) gives you a chance to get to know Liza.

A film poem created with the wild flowers that grow along the shore of the Laira estuary, the tidal mouth of the River Plym, on the southwest coast of Britain. The petals and leaves stream past as the haunting soundscape ebbs and flows. The title relates to the cyclical nature of the seasons and the twice daily rhythm of the tides.

A dedicated bird watcher observes a hawk and journeys to the limits of what it means to be human. Peregrine is an experimental animated film about obsession, instinct and innate darkness. It explores the elegance and majesty of nature, but also its unavoidable cruelty. It is inspired by the autobiographical The Peregrine, written by J. A. Baker.

This experimental film is based on a multi-channel video installation by Berlin-based artist Robert Seidel, pushing the limits of abstract painting in the digital age. It unleashes a sublime moment of pure abstraction into an asymmetrical orchestration of motion paintings.

An animated extravaganza of plastic collected from beaches, roadsides, attics and junk shops. This is an elegy to a love affair that has gone sour, a fond farewell to that most beautiful material that has enslaved our planet – plastic.

Once upon a time there was a kingdom where only the slenderest of bottoms in the world lived. They had their own social system and even a deity they worshipped. This kingdom is where the protagonist of the film happened to find herself after being unable to zip up her own jeans. The film is a scary yet playful story about her relationship with her own body.

Oscar and his two brothers skip the Sunday mass celebrated by their father in the local church and delve into the world of games. But the villains of their imagination appear to be more real than the overgrown monsters from TV. Will Oscar overcome this challenge? And how will his parents fare in the eyes of God?

Aline and her mother were born in Cambodia and life in France isn’t particularly easy for them. While Aline has to face xenophobia from her classmates, her mother struggles with the language and needs her daughter’s help to get through common life situations. Plus, the parent-teacher meeting is coming.

The emotional tone of this gentle film is brilliantly reflected in its poetic, artistic style created using watercolours. The film’s author says: ‛It’s like having a dog who decides that someone else is its master. As soon as the dog hears the sound of the person’s bike bell, he decides to run after it. And you need to follow him.’

An excursion to a strange theatre is a dreamlike experience. Figures in fish costumes march on the stage and are replaced by static props as if taken from a storage room of theatre props and masks. The spectators of this piece (and the film’s viewers) find themselves in a space somewhere between reality and veiled memories.

This graduate film by students of Israel’s Bezalel Academy explores the serious theme of a death in the family. But it comes to terms with the death in a livelier way than one would expect. Each family member confronts the situation in their own way, but one thing connects them all – very original musical performances.

This atmospheric film from Ostrava University explores the seasonal folk custom of carrying away and burning the effigy of the ancient goddess Morana in celebration of the end of winter. The author also poses the question whether it’s fair to perceive Morana in a negative way. After all, if nature didn’t have a rest during the winter, spring couldn’t come.

This artistically playful ani-doc depicts the world of an empathetic woman who has adopted handicapped animals. She has given a new home to an old, sick Chihuahua, a paralysed French bulldog and a literal scaredy-cat.

The Slovakian director made this colourful film full of dancing as her graduation film at the Tomas Bata University in Zlín. It focuses mainly on the search for one’s identity. Thanks to music and dancing, a Romani girl gets back to her roots and explores the rich history of her people.

This film takes place in a world where clouds knowingly interfere with people’s lives. But the people don’t suspect a thing. The whole history of the clouds is revealed after a newborn cloud tries to help a selfish biker. However, because of the biker’s recklessness, nothing changes for humanity.

This daring, artistically original and expectation-defying surrealistic story stars a goat travelling through strange culinary worlds. The goat’s travels form a sequence of originally depicted scenes from the contemporary world. A collage-like style spikes this film made at the Higher School of Art in Ostrava with a hefty dose of exaggeration.

Between two unsolicited calls, the director’s grandfather recalls an episode from the time when he was twenty and fought in the Second World War. This tragicomic anecdote from unsettled times was the second and last authorial short project by Mathias de Panafieu. After his untimely death, his close friends and relatives finished the film.

Another specifically distinct film by the independent British director. Deep in the forest, a hunter encounters a strange creature he cannot kill. Caught up in a twisted tale of metamorphosis, creation and destruction, he embarks on a never-ending technicolour nightmare and is transported to a vibrant new world... and body.

Even though it may seem otherwise, the puppet film Catcalls is based on real-life events. Its authors were inspired by real dialogues from incidents of sexual harassment of various intensities collected by Sophie Sandberg, who placed them in the streets of New York – where they actually took place. Despite starring horny dogs and disgusted cats, the film reflects a very topical issue.

This captivating film starting with the words: ‛You know, when I was a boy, I fell in love with the Virgin Mary. It happened in a little Bavarian town called Altötting,’ was made by the renowned German filmmaker Andres Hykade. In this film, he collaborated artistically with the no less renowned Portuguese filmmaker Regina Pessoa.

This sensitively filmed Dutch-Colombian ani-doc portrays the struggles of Colombian women who are trying to secure better lives for their daughters. The author follows several generations – from grandmothers to their granddaughters – and captures what has and hasn’t changed for them in a society in which women and girls face various stereotypes.

In his latest film, Latvian filmmaker Vladimir Leschiov moves away from weird, hard-to-grasp situations and utilises nostalgia, atmosphere and his own memories. In Comeback, which is most likely his most personal film, we can see his long-lost passion from a childhood spent in the Soviet Union unexpectedly returning to the spotlight.

This film is the directorial debut of the director who graduated from the prestigious film school La Poudrière. Hiding death doesn’t make it disappear. A young girl suffers from adults’ silences and feels dispossessed of her right to mourn. Once an adult, she describes the tender gestures that bind her to the dead.

An artistically refined and atmospheric film made by three Dutch filmmakers from the Moldybyrd Studio. This hand-drawn film set in a post-apocalyptic world tells the story of a woman fascinated by the wilderness which lies beyond the walls of her desolate village. When a strange alien appears, the main protagonist discovers her wild self.

For little Ilze Burkovska-Jacobsen, director of this captivating ani-doc,      World War II was her favourite war. It was in this Great Patriotic War where the Nazis were finally put in      their place by the great and glorious Soviet Union, whose heroes little Ilze watched      on television programmes filled with Soviet propaganda. She liked to pretend to be fallen soldiers and made every effort not to tarnish their memory. As a ‘proper patriot’ she defended the ‘prosperity’ brought to Latvia by the Soviet Union… As she would learn later in      life, the reality was far from what it seemed to be and from what Ilze saw on TV, at school and from her father. It’s this first-hand experience with living in Soviet-controlled Latvia that enhances the truthfulness of My Favorite War. The director puts animated visions from her childhood in contrast with photorealistic      archival footage, people spreading the truth (her grandfather, declared an ‘enemy of the people’) and real events from the places where she grew up. Cut-out animation and an artistic style characterised by, among other things, the obsidian black eyes of all the characters emphasises the oppressiveness experienced in the described period between the 1970s and the 1990s by      the people of Latvia and many other countries.

‘We'll get through this together’ was the logline of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and inspired a TV series of seven animated spots. Czech Television asked the main seven creators of these animated movies to make short spots on this topic.

This film took upon itself the uneasy task of explaining to paediatric radiotherapy patients the process of the examination and treatment they will receive. The director, known for her short films, used slight exaggeration, playful artistic style and a commentary the patients can relate to.

In this year’s Czech Horizon, this director of successful short films competes with two music videos. Both of them use her trademark style and both were made for Pavel Čadek’s songs. This music video reflects the song’s lyrics and uses panels typical for social media.

Anyone can slip up, but the important thing is that you’re not alone… This short spot for the Public Health Institute for anonymous HIV/AIDS testing was made by a student of the Studio of Animated and Audiovisual Art of the University of Ostrava.

A ship sets sail from the harbour. But as the sky grows dark and the ship encounters more and more peculiar things, the idyllic atmosphere of the cruise disappears. A dramatic finale is on the horizon. A journey to achieve one’s goal cannot be undertaken without sacrifices and the price for achieving it may be high.

This nostalgic music video portrays a reminiscing elderly couple. Their memories, just like everything else in this music video, are made of paper. The music video was made by the authors of this year’s Anifilm visual identity, a Czech-Israeli duo of animators who typically use claymation.

This short video reflects weird stuff people are doing at home in these even weirder times of Covid-19. Another spot from the Czech Television series aiming to ease the hard times of the pandemic was made by a Slovak director who was also the co-author of the visual identity of the first Anifilm held in Liberec.

Neo is a wild visual artwork of two young animators and percussive poets by Hello Marcel. The authors gain inspiration from their close surroundings using a combination of visual technique and psychedelic colours to highlight the main leitmotif. They blur the distinction between impertinence and cool things.

A promotional short about historical tram line number 23. A magical voyage of a tourist through Prague during various time periods with a little surprise at the end. The spot’s author, Daniel Řehák, used to be a film critic, currently he is writing, directing and animating commercial shorts for various clients.

For some time now Alžběta Göbelová (a former student of Tomas Bata University in Zlín) has been making videos for the Czech cosmetic brand Manufaktura. Her latest ad uses a simple form to promote a disinfectant gel for children and possibly also little piggies.

IT tools can at times seem cold and hard to grasp for inexperienced users. But not in this spot by Eliška and Lee Oz. A stop-motion animation ad for OMEGA indexer, which takes your URLs and pushes them up the Google results so people can find them easily.

Along with the wild rhythm of the song, a prince clad in a leather jacket rides through a punk world. Instead of water from springs, he swills wine, cuts monsters like sausages and when he has a chance, he has a fun time with princesses. Unfortunately, nothing can last forever, and after a wild party often comes a rude awakening.

This series of three recruitment spots was made for the Faculty of Science of the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. The lively and humorous videos work with irony and make efficient use of several animation techniques.

The second music video for singer Pavel Čadek in this year’s Czech Horizon competition works with the motif of dance, which is very rewarding for animation. The video’s sketched heroes or their silhouettes dance in various surroundings or transform into abstract shapes.

This new comic book by Kateřina Čupová, illustrator and animator whose short films are very well known to Anifilm visitors, commemorates the 100^th anniversary of the premiere of Karel Čapek’s famous play R.U.R. This trailer for her comic book suggests that it presents Čapek’s work in a new interpretation designed to appeal to readers 100 years younger.

A message from the spot’s author: 'The current pandemic situation made me realise that even the toughest people can easily succumb to panic. I would like to tell them to keep calm, stay on top of things and try to enjoy the weeks spent in the permanent presence of their families. Even though it won’t be easy all the time.'

An educational video about withdrawal (also known as ‛pulling out’). This is a type of contraceptive or birth control method that can be used during penile-vaginal sex. This fresh and humorous spot stars clay alter egos of its authors.

The real story of Zdenko and his wife, set in 1950, follows the couple’s dramatic escape from Czechoslovakia. The danger that awaits them doesn’t lurk in dense woods, but rather on the exposed marshlands of the Czechoslovak border they need to cross on their journey.

This lino-cut music video made for a Czech alternative band named Planety tells a story of love set in an ocean enclosed in a small aquarium. The director, a student of the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, plays with phased lino-cut movements supplemented by hand-drawn details.

The jingle of ZubrOFFka, the Polish International Short Film Festival, by Dávid Štumpf stars strange humanoid creatures. They are bored out of their minds, probably in quarantine, but luckily, the festival’s renowned mascot – a 'bison' – comes along.

The life and work of the notable Baroque writer, scholar and pedagogue in an animated short. The film, directed by Jakub Obraz from the Kolín-based studio KLUCIvespolek, was made for a permanent exhibition hosted in the Dutch city of Naarden.

When she was just a little girl, Lauren had a strange encounter on the Japanese island of Okinawa. A mythical demon called a baku crept into her sleep and consumed all her nightmares. Since then, Lauren has wanted to meet the baku again. And what’s more – she’s convinced such magical creatures need our protection. In an alternative reality version of the 1960s ‛hippie era’ in the US, Lauren uses the help of her friend Joan, a seer, and together they establish a special zoo for cryptids – mythical animals and other (often dangerous) creatures. Here people can admire them and neither they nor the animals are exposed to danger. But Lauren and Joan are not the only ones who search the world for the last surviving legends. Their peacenik culture is opposed by the militant Nick, who sees these magical creatures as a means of gaining power and is set on hunting the baku. With her help, he wants to destroy the dreams and plans of ‛all hippies and other scum’ and establish an authoritarian regime. So Lauren has her hands full with saving all the endangered creatures. But is the cryptid zoo the right solution? And what does her sidekick Phoebe, who belongs among the endangered creatures, think? The road to achieving Lauren’s ideals leads them through America, where they encounter a clairvoyant and a treacherous faun and get involved in bloody conflicts. Everything is in psychedelically colourful settings created by graphic artist and director Dash Shaw, whose film My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea (2016) was awarded a Special Mention of the Jury at Anifilm 2017.

An adventurous story about how easy it is to lose freedom and how hard it is to get it back. A group of street artists arrives on an island lost in the ocean which is ruled by the all-powerful Commander. A botched cannon shot during their performance at a fair triggers a series of dramatic events. Young man Drin, girl Tuvi and seagull Natan are suddenly outnumbered by the Police.

Even though the film, with a slightly nostalgic undertone was made by a small independent team on a very limited budget, it boasts superb puppet animation and unusual stylisation and voice casting. This puppet film by renowned Czech director and graphic artist Jan Balej, whose trademark style has played a significant role in Czech animation after the Velvet Revolution, won this year’s Czech Lion Award.