Germany, 1945. World War II is nearing its climactic end. Five-year-old Sophie and her parents are refugees fleeing from the advancing Red Army. They hide in a hotel, where they encounter Nazi officer Scharf and Hitler Youth member Beckmann. As the Russians come closer, Sophie falls into a lift and is knocked unconscious. Meanwhile, Scharf accidentally kills Sophie’s mother and Wassily, a paratrooper, kills her father. Time passes and teenage Sophie works for Soviet soldiers as a kitchen maid in the hotel. Food sometimes disappears, but Sophie finds the culprit: Beckmann, who has been hiding in a corridor beneath the hotel since the war ended. As an adult, Sophie reluctantly marries Wassily and develops a relationship with Beckmann. Decades go by; the Russians leave and Scharf takes over the hotel. Sophie convinces Beckmann to leave, and the pair head for the North Sea, turning their backs on the hotel and its memories.
Len Lye scraped together enough funding and borrowed equipment to produce a two-minute short featuring his self-made monkey, singing and dancing to 'Peanut Vendor', a 1931 jazz hit for Red Nichols. The two foot high monkey had bolted, moveable joints and some 50 interchangeable mouths to convey the singing. To get the movements right, Lye filmed his new wife, Jane, a prize-winning rumba dancer.
Animation featuring dancing black and white shadows.
In the 40's, after the Spanish Civil War, many republicans defeated by the nationalist forces of Franco found refuge on the bordering mountains in the north of Portugal. Some saw them as brigands, others gave them shelter and helped them on the sly to police forces of Salazar. They were... the Outlaws.
Norman McLaren instructs Grant Munro on the movements he is to make. The film technique for Two Bagatelles is pixillation, where the actor is animated frame by frame, as in the film Neighbours/Voisins.
This animated short is a play on motion set against a background of multi-hued sky. Spheres of translucent pearl float weightlessly in the unlimited panorama of the sky, grouping, regrouping or colliding like the stylized burst of some atomic chain reaction. The dance is set to the musical cadences of Bach, played by pianist Glenn Gould.
A short four-minute concept film unveiled in surprise at Studio SHAFT's 40th anniversary event in winter 2015, Madogatari. The first animated Puella Magi Madoka Magica work since Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion, it features the return of the full Madoka Magica cast and staff.
Set in Han Imperial China, the plot follows the adventures of enslaved girl Ping with ancient dragon Long Danzi. Dragons had been banished from the kingdom. Ping, an orphan, finds one of the last remaining dragon eggs. Palace guards force Ping to run away in order to return the dragon egg to the ocean and save all dragons from extinction. Ping discovers that she is a true Dragonkeeper.
After her mother's death, Kim finds solace in wearing her mother's old sweater. However, the sweater begins to itch and even hurt her, but she still can't bring herself to take it off.
At the end of the eighth day the Creator has taken refuge in a dark dungeon . Obsessed with transcending he manipulates life to the extreme and tries to engender the perfect being that will immortalize him
The world of 10-year old Nina has been in turmoil since her father lost his job. Despite weeks of strike, his factory closed down. The manager had tampered with the accounts and precipitated its collapse. But rumour has it that a nest-egg remains hidden somewhere in the factory. Nina and her friend Mehdi spring into action to help Nina’s dad out. This tale of our times, which is also a coming-of-age story, stages the interaction between the concerns of children and those of adults.
A king hides an embarrassing secret - and it causes him to execute every barber who cuts his hair.
Every dog has his day, but poor Dante can't seem to catch a break.
Sketch Film #1 (Tomonari Nishikawa, 2005, 3 min., super 8, silent, 18/24fps, b&w, USA) As a painter carries a sketchbook and practices drawing, I carried a Super 8 camera and shot frame by frame, as an everyday exercise to make animations of lines and shapes found in the public space. The entire film was edited in camera and hand-processed afterwards.
Sketch Film #3 (Tomonari Nishikawa, 2006, 3 min., super 8, silent, 18/24fps, b&w, USA/Japan) The third film in the series, which starts with a sequence of paired images: a focused image and a blurred image of the same subject, which was caused by a diagonal camera movement. Later, it shows an experiment to produce an apparent depth by rotating an apparent shape. It was edited in camera and hand-processed afterwards.
Pikachu and the gang learn responsibility, teamwork as well as cooperation during their Summer vacation at Pokemon Island.
Animation and activism unite in this multimedia spoken-word response to police brutality and racial injustice.
A street cat meets an old man that will change his life forever. Between bowls of milk and warm cuddles, he feels welcomed by his new owner, but the elderly gentleman has secrets of his own.
Finn has stains on his body. One day, he meets a group of cool kids with different stains on their bodies. One day, he understands that these stains aren’t just pretty.
Celebrating Batman’s 75th anniversary, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation have debuted this new animated short for the cultural icon.