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Animated Shorts (collection)

Animated Shorts (collection)

A companion to the Animated Features Collection, this collection brings together an array of filmmakers working across varied styles. From experimental political manifestos to humorous explorations of love, these films showcase the rich possibilities of animation as a short-form medium. Among the highlights are seven Oscar-winners, including THE DANISH POET, on the nature of creativity and inspiration, and BOB’S BIRTHDAY, a witty, offbeat portrait of aging.

Painterly animation, photographs and home-movie treasures evoke the wistfulness of childhood in BALAKRISHNA. In I LIKE GIRLS, Quebec cartoonist Diane Obomsawin explores the humor and pratfalls of one-sided infatuation. Other highlights include Koji Yamamura's reflections on music and time in MUYBRIDGE'S STRINGS, the technically innovative CODA, and Oscar-winning stop-motion fable THE SAND CASTLE.

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Animated Shorts (collection)
  • Thin Rain

    Directed by Lewis Klahr • Documentary • 2023 • 15 minutes

    An amnesiac film noir that draws on 1940s and 1950s magazine imagery to create a city symphony for its lost, flâneur protagonist to wander through.

  • The Three Friends of the Cold Season

    Directed by Lewis Klahr • Animation • 2024 • 15 minutes

    A three-act adventure epic that genre hops from swashbucklers to westerns to melodrama. Each act occurs in a different century and is set to a different iconic song from master American song book collagist Dick Connette.

  • Monogram

    Directed by Lewis Klahr • Animation • 2019 • 9 minutes

    Poetic Screenplay by Tom Gunning based on the 1944 William Castle feature "When Strangers Marry"

  • Turn It Back (Lewis Klahr)

    Directed by Lewis Klahr • Animation • 2012 • 3 minutes

    A feature-length melodrama compressed into just under three minutes, in which a quintessential '60s blonde discovers who she really desires.

  • Alcestis

    Directed by Lewis Klahr • Animation • 2021 • 22 minutes

    An interpretive adaptation of the Greek myth and the Euripides play that uses a melange of comic book characters as its cast. Klahr's most explicitly narrative collage film. From the series The Blue Rose of Forgetfulness.

  • Well Then There Now

    Directed by Lewis Klahr • Animation • 2012 • 13 minutes

    An unfaithful and playful interpretation of John Zorn's early 80s film script Treatment For a Film in 15 Scenes, which was written as a shot list.

  • Teat Beat of Sex: Kirby EP 1

    Directed by Signe Baumane • Animation • 2008 • 2 minutes

    A take on sex exclusively from a woman's point of view. Episode 1 "Kirby". A woman discusses her feelings about… size.

  • The Girl With The Rivet Gun

    Directed by Anne de Mare, Kirsten Kelly • Documentary • 2021 • 15 minutes

    Built entirely by women filmmakers, THE GIRL WITH THE RIVET GUN is an unconventional animated documentary short based on the adventures of three real-life 'Rosie the Riveters' - Esther Horne, Susan Taylor King and Mildred ...

  • Laberinto de Luz / Lightbyrinth

    Directed by Eugenio Polgovsky • Documentary • 2016 • 7 minutes

    In Lightbyrinth 21st-century digital technology meets 19th-century animation in homage to eminent physicist James C. Maxwell. Filmed in Cambridge using his original zoetrope, the film conjures a sense of wonder at early image-making ...

  • The Sand Castle

    Directed by Co Hoedeman • Animation • 1977 • 13 minutes

    A fable of great humour and appeal, The Sand Castle is the story of the Sandman and the creatures he sculpts out of sand. Under his direction, they build a castle and celebrate the completion of their new home, only to be interrupted by an ...

  • Bob’s Birthday

    Directed by David Fine and Alison Snowdon • Animation • 1993 • 12 minutes

    Surprise birthday parties can be risky. Especially when the guest of honour is turning 40! When Margaret plans a celebration for her husband, Bob, she underestimates the sudden impact of middle age on his mood. A witty, of...

  • The Danish Poet

    Directed by Torill Kove • Animation • With Liv Ullmann • 2006 • 14 minutes

    This Oscar®-winning short animation follows Kasper, a poet whose creative well has run dry, on a holiday to Norway to meet the famous writer Sigrid Undset. Kasper attempts to answer some pretty big questions: can we trace...

  • Special Delivery

    Directed by John Weldon and Eunice Macaulay • Animation • 1978 • 7 minutes

    The first big mistake Ralph makes is not clearing the snow from the front walk, and his life goes downhill from that point on. By the end of the story, the mailman has fatally slipped on his job, Alice, his wife, doesn't ...

  • Ryan

    Directed by Chris Landreth • Animation • 2004 • 14 minutes

    Ryan is based on the life of Ryan Larkin, a Canadian animator who, 30 years ago, produced some of the most influential animated films of his time. In the film, we hear the voices of prominent animators and artists discussing Ryan's work,...

  • Neighbours

    Directed by Norman McLaren • Animation • 1952 • 8 minutes

    Won the 1952 Oscar for Best Short Documentary! Two neighbours live side by side in harmony until a flower grows on the dividing line between their properties. Who does it belong to? The argument that follows ends up with both neighbours i...

  • Every Child

    Directed by Eugene Fedorenko • Animation • 1979 • 6 minutes

    Produced at the invitation of the United Nations Organization to celebrate UNICEF's Declaration of Children's Rights, this film is the Canadian contribution to the hour-long feature film consisting of ten six-minute segments in celebrat...

  • The Great Malaise

    Directed by Catherine Lepage • Animation • 2019 • 5 minutes

    In the voiceover for this animated short, a young woman attempts to describe herself, casting her life in the ideal light that society expects. The film’s imagery, however, tells a different story, poignantly illustrating the intense an...

  • Balakrishna

    Directed by Colin MacKenzie & Aparna Kapur • Animation • 2019 • 15 minutes

    When an extraordinary new resident – Balakrishna, an Indian elephant – arrived in the town of East River, Nova Scotia, in 1967, no one was more in awe of the creature than young Winton Cook, who became inseparable from hi...

  • Marx for Beginners

    Directed by Bob Godfrey • Animation • 1978 • 6 minutes

    How many people have actually read the work of Karl Marx? Based on the book by the Mexican cartoonist Rius, MARX FOR BEGINNERS is a hilarious animated film that highlights Marx's most influential ideas, and places them into the context of we...

  • Reflection

    Directed by Sylvie Trouvé • Animation • 2012 • 5 minutes

    Reflection is an exploration of Montreal through an abstract lens. Director Sylvie Trouvé examines how reflected images pervade our surroundings, how our senses filter out these ghost images and, finally, how the camera can capture emotion...

  • The Mountain of SGaana

    Directed by Christopher Auchter • Animation • 2017 • 10 minutes

    The Mountain of SGaana spins a magical tale of a young man who is stolen away to the spirit world, and the young woman who rescues him. Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter's dream-like gem brilliantly entwines traditional animation ...

  • Impromptu

    Directed by Bruce Alcock • Animation • 2013 • 10 minutes

    Impromptu takes a look at the redemptive power of food, wine, music and love through the eyes of a modern man. Chuck is in his element, cooking and listening to Chopin with his baby daughter, imagining what he will say to his wife Sylvie o...

  • The End of Pinky

    Directed by Claire Blanchet • Animation • 2013 • 8 minutes

    The End of Pinky revolves around three fallen angels seeking companionship and humanity in the shadows of the red-light district, in a mythic, magically realized Montreal. The survivor of traumatic childhood experiences recounted in hear...

  • Drux Flux

    Directed by Theodore Ushev • Animation • 2008 • 5 minutes

    Partly figurative, partly abstract, Drux Flux is an animation film of fast-flowing images showing modern people crushed by industry. Inspired by One-Dimensional Man by the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, the filmmaker deconstructs industrial...