The Sketch

Likely in June 1897, a group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.

A married man on a business trip checks into a hotel. The hotel manager’s daughter falls for him at first sight. Rejected by the man, she embarks on a journey of revenge...

A man falls in a hole on his walk, he sees another person walking on the same path and makes sure he's not the only one to get injured.

Rolling Stones – Hearts for Prague

Images, voices, and interrupted silences that evoke the intangible losses caused by COVID-19.

An excited Mari Carmen starts her first day at work at the International Sales Office, but not everything will go as she expects. A duck has appeared in the balcony calling everyone’s attention and turning upside down the day that Mari Carmen wanted to have a fresh start.

This bone-chilling minimalistic animation film (made with black, white and red colors only) is voiced by the director herself, the Australian illustrator Anita Lester, whose grand-aunt had lost her entire family in Nazi camps and has then gone mad. Her confused, distorted, extrapolated memories full of despair and horror, of mysterious interiors and someone’s eyes, became the foundation of this impressive conceptual short film.

You have probably heard of the phrase “to think outside the box”? Well, this is a film about such a box and the flat-headed creatures that live inside of it. Life in the Box is boring and miserable. Until one day a new baby boy starts to grow in the middle of the Box! This boy is very different from other flat-headed inhabitants of the Box. He’s happy, lively and curious. As the boy grows bigger and bigger, the flat-headed neighbours are becoming more and more annoyed with him. Until one day when he literally grows over their heads.

A corridor of an apartment is transformed into a claustrophobic and vertiginous vortex that swallows and imprisons you in an infinite fall through a mise en abyme: it’s a pure enclosure inside the image world, it’s the Descent into the Maelstrom.

Řečtí umělci

Krvavý Bagrám

In this short animation film the triangle achieves the distinction of principal dancer in a geometric ballet. The triangle is shown splitting into some three hundred transformations, dividing and sub-dividing with grace and symmetry to the music of a waltz. The film's artist and animator is René Jodoin, whose credits include Dance Squared and several collaborations with Norman McLaren.

Laurence au marché

Gifted animator Leslie Supnet collaborates with Winnipeg storyteller Glen Johnson for this contemplative comic fantasy about a time-obsessed squirrel.

The Chaperone tells the true, previously untold story of a lone school teacher who fought off an entire motorcycle gang while chaperoning a middle school dance in a church basement in 1970s Montreal, Canada. Told from the first person unscripted perspective of the school teacher and DJ who were there that night, The Chaperone recreates the whole scene using hand drawn animation, miniature sets, puppets, live action Kung Fu and explosions all done in stereoscopic 3D. With over 10,000 hand drawings (many of which were colored in crayon by hand), an original blaxploitation score and featuring a cast of over 200 people, The Chaperone is an unconventional approach to documentary shorts.

A cardboard world where monkeys steal pickles and buildings change themselves. The film is a visualization of the city's rapidly changing neighborhoods, that still hold charm in the shop keepers and street musicians.

Theodore Ushev’s acclaimed 20th century trilogy concludes with this brilliant fusion of 3D and Russian constructivist-styled animation. Recycling elements of surrealism and cubism, this animated short by Theodore Ushev focuses on the relationship between art and war. Propelled by the exalting “invasion” theme from Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony (No. 7), the film presents imagery of combat fronts and massacres, leading us from Dresden to Guernica, from the Spanish Civil War to Star Wars. It is at once a symphony that serves the war machine, that stirs the masses, and art that mourns the dead, voices its outrage and calls for peace.

In this short animation, Oscar®-winning director Chris Landreth uses a common social gaffe - forgetting somebody's name - as the starting point for a mind-bending romp through the unconscious. Inspired by the classic TV game show Password, the film features a wealth of animated celebrity guests who try (and try, and try) to prompt Charles to remember the name. Finally, he realizes he will simply have to surrender himself to his predicament.