Competition

Short 1

Bound 01:06

United Kingdom 2019
Directed by: Gustavo Arteaga
Screenplay: Gustavo Arteaga
Animation: Gustavo Arteaga
Technique: Stop-motion
Music: N/A
Production/School: Gustavo Arteaga
Dialogue language: No dialogue
Subtitles language: N/A



We are bound to the choices we make. A take on the consequences of ocean pollution.


Plunge - Short Animation 04:45
United Kingdom 2019
Directed by: David James Holloway, Samuel Lawrence
Screenplay: David James Holloway, Samuel Lawrence
Animation: 2D
Technique: 2D Digital Animation
Music: Jack Beech, Cameron Bloom
Production/School: David James Holloway, Samuel Lawrence
Dialogue language: English
Subtitles language: English

A boy reminisces about his first love.
Umbilical 06:53

United States 2019
Directed by: Danski Tang
Dialogue language: Chinese



This piece is an animated documentary exploring how my mother’s abusive relationship with my father shaped my own experiences in a boarding school as a child in China. The societal pressures on my mother to hide her abuse and her desire to protect me ultimately created a situation where I was subjected to the same societal pressures. Our shared desires for intimacy, safety, and normalcy have been constantly at odds with the realities that surround us. Through a conversation as adults, my mother and I learn to understand each other and support one another.



Magic Dream 11:08

Chile 2019
Directed by: Tomás Welss
Screenplay: Tomás Welss
Production/School: Ignacio Hernández, Iván Nakouzi
Dialogue language: English



"Magic Dream" is a painted stop-motion full animation film that tells the story of a magician on stage trying to perform his show. As his magic goes wrong, he loses control and gets weak. The wizard timidly reintegrates to the set and tries to extract a rabbit from his hat. The rabbit rejects the magician and his environment. As he keeps crumbling down, the rabbit offers him help, to deal with the misleading and confusing magic and to confront his life.



Gym & Goolie 05:29

Australia 2019
Directed by: Tović
Screenplay: Tović
Animation: 2D
Technique: Digital
Music: Tović
Production/School: Hutz
Dialogue language: English
Subtitles language: English



When alone, Gym and Goolie escape into the worlds of their own imaginations. Gym creates fan-work for an online community and Goolie crafts fantastical costumes. Both long to be someone else, somewhere else, yet struggle with the fear of connection and the anxieties of self-expression.

Hansel and Gretel 05:40

United Kingdom 2019
Directed by: Shaun Clark , Magid El-Bushra
Animation: Shaun Clark
Technique: 2D drawn and cut out
Production/School: Magid El-Bushra
Dialogue language: English
Subtitles language: English



Hansel and Gretel’s parents have fallen on hard times. One afternoon, the children decide to cheer themselves up by dancing. Their mother Gertrud is furious to discover them neglecting their work. She sends them out into the forest to find strawberries for supper, little realising that it is a dangerous place after dark.

Memory Boxes 08:29

Germany 2019
Directed by: Hamze Bytyci
Screenplay: Damian Le Bas
Production/School: Caspar Schleicher
Dialogue language: English



Zoni Weisz survived the Holocaust - finding a way to deal with it remains his task. Zoni Weisz hid his memories as if behind locked cabinet doors. His childhood in a Romani wagon, the deportation of his family to Auschwitz, doubts about his own identity - behind some doors there are beautiful moments, behind others only agony and grief. Over the years, Zoni learned how to deal with these memories. A painful but inevitable process.

...they only take away the criminals / ...die bringen nur die Verbrecher weg 06:10

Germany 2019
Directed by: Hamze Bytyci
Screenplay: Kristof Horvath
Production/School: Caspar Schleicher
Dialogue language: German



“They only take away the criminals,” Zilli Reichmann’s father said when the National Socialists arrested the first Sinti and Roma. Because he was fatally wrong, the 95-year-old Sintizza tells her story today. In the animated short film she tells of the murder of her daughter and family in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, her struggle for survival and the meaning of life after the Holocaust.

Homeward 04:52

Israel 2019
Directed by: Shirley Neeman
Screenplay: Shirley Neeman
Production/School: Shirley Neeman



A woman leaves her home with only a suitcase in her hand. Exile is a lonely place, a search of a lost feeling of belonging, of identity and security. Nothing but a portrait on the wall to remind you where you came from, but it will not tell you who you are. Objects become a true companion when the searching road is the only place that feels like home.

Idiot 18:30

Slovakia 2018
Directed by: Dušan Davidov
Screenplay: Dušan Davidov
Production/School: Dušan Davidov
Dialogue language: English



The “Smiling Man”, our hero is, in fact, an “Idiot”. The topic of altruism, when a hero helps also at the cost of not being understood, and his help may be considered annoying, is as eternal as mankind itself. Our story does not take place in aristocratic chambers but rather in an office. The “Smiling Man” is a small officer in a small town who lives 150 years later than the prince (the prince Myshkin). While F. Dostoyevsky depicted altruism in human relationships, our hero lives to work. For him, work is everything, it is something like breathing. Work is his second nature, he doesn’t realise the fact that he is abused by his colleagues, he helps because everybody wants him to help; because he is asked for help. While the topic of Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot” was altruism, our key topic is the misuse of altruism and its perception as a weakness. The “Smiling Man” slaves for all of them, not only at work, but also at home; without any claim to be paid, without any appreciation from his colleagues or family. He lives the life he considers correct. When a stupid boss unjustly fires him, he is not angry with him. Not even when the boss runs down to the street to give him the food box he has left behind in the office. The “Smiling Man” perceives it as the boss´s favour. He sees a human being in his boss. It would never occur to him, not even in his dreams, that he brought it to him just to prevent him from entering the office any more. Even if it came into his mind, he would never believe it, because he’s a nice guy; he is an “Idiot”.

Dead Bod 02:00

United Kingdom 2020
Directed by: Shaun Clark, Kim Noce
Animation: Shaun Clark, Kim Noce
Technique: Shaun Clark, Kim Noce
Production/School: Chris Hees



Graffitied onto Alexandra Dock in Hull a dead bod (Bird) sits as a reminder of an incident which happened out at sea in the 1960’s.

I Want / Ich Will 02:00

Germany 2018
Directed by: Anne Isensee
Screenplay: Anne Isensee
Animation: Anne Isensee
Technique: 2D Digital
Music: Sarah Farina
Production/School: Anne Isensee
Dialogue language: German
Subtitles language: English



„I Want“ wants loud colours, rainbow music and a cheeky poem. You can't always get what you want, but maybe this film can.

Tacit Blue 09:14

China 2019
Directed by: Wenkai Duan
Screenplay: Wenkai Duan
Production/School: Lei Wang



Carl goes to a deserted site to rescue his daughter Alice who was kidnapped. Waiting for Carl in the site is Moye, Carl’s biggest rival who works for an organized criminal party. Moye modified Alice and turned her into a killing machine. Carl saw the daughter being transformed and he lost his calm, Until almost killed by his daughter. Carl does not hesitate to use his blood and life to awaken his daughter’s memory.

Smile You Deserve It / ابتسم فأنت تستحقها 03:50

Qatar 2020
Directed by: Ibrahim Albuainain
Screenplay: Ibrahim Albuainain
Production/School: Ibrahim Albuainain
Dialogue language: Arabic



A forever-smiling farmer proves that hard work and optimism can bring the fruit of success. The positive demeanor of optimistic farmer teaches his pessimist neighbor a beautiful life lesson that the work done with joy and persistence bears the best harvest.


Once Upon Another 01:12
United Kingdom 2019
Directed by: Chuck George Tsioutsias
Animation: Big Boy Studio
Technique: CGI / 3D Animation
Music: Matthew Thomas
Production/School: Big Boy Studio

'Once Upon Another' is a visual narrative that challenges the notion of traditional sculpture and its relationship with surrounding spaces. It's inspired by a quote by the Japanese-American artist and designer Isamu Noguchi: "Everything is sculpture. Any material, any idea without hindrance born into space, I consider sculpture." It consists of a series of vignettes of installations (or in this case sculptures) that live in grand architectural landscapes, seen through a CG lens.
Duodrom 08:42

Switzerland 2019
Directed by: Basil Vogt
Screenplay: Basil Vogt
Production/School: Saskia von Virág



We all have two sides. But if even the tiniest scare splits someone into a timid skin on the one hand and an overconfident skeleton on the other, that person has a lot of work ahead to bring their characteristics back into harmony again.

Napo 16:07

Brazil 2020
Directed by: Gustavo Ribeiro
Screenplay: Gustavo Ribeiro , Gabriela Antonia Rosa
Production/School: Thais Peixe, Gustavo Ribeiro



John, unable to understand the illness that drives his grandfather between past and present states, stumbles into an old album full of photographs and then let the images guide his imagination, transforming his grandpa's memories into drawing interpretations. Drawings that shapes their relationship into a history of remembrance and memory building.