How are you?

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.

Cut up animation and collage technique by Harry Smith synchronized to the jazz of Thelonious Monk's Mysterioso.

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.

Animator Ryan Larkin does a visual improvisation to music performed by a popular group presented as sidewalk entertainers. His take-off point is the music, but his own beat is more boisterous than that of the musicians. The illustrations range from convoluted abstractions to caricatures of familiar rituals. Without words.

After an unproductive appointment, the Subject returns home as their bottled up emotions reach a boiling point.

A young, wannabe streetwear influencer dying to make an impact on the world gets a lot more than he bargained for when a shy but obsessive fan decides to help him become a star for his own gain at the expense of everyone else involved. Macabre Metrics is an almost feature-length, visually experimental exploration into the world of image culture set in Seoul. Shot entirely on iPhone with animated sequences.

A political work in which Ko Nakajima opposes himself to the Vietnam War.

LAND is a fluid series of formal land animation experiments based upon the imprint of landscapes in various locations and intuitive interpretations of those movements. Shot in New York, Thimble Islands Bear Island, Connecticut, Armstrong Redwoods, Sonoma County, California, Hastings, England. note* (part of the EYE Filmmuseum Permanent Collection)

An experimental short from Oskar Fischinger

A strange wire-fingered homunculus navigates through his dreams of different faces and faces, traversing a subliminal and endless variety. They are all different faces, but all have huge eyes that are questioned as to what keeps them apart, perhaps left broken by an impossible love.

Short film made using cardboard cutouts of a classic Western scene

A washed up actor performs night after night in a grimy theater to a nearly empty audience. However, everything changes when a clueless dog jumps on stage.

Seraphim Cloud and his life size doppelgänger enter the netherworld of Calico Ghost Town deep within the Mojave Desert.

Exploring the conscious, the unconscious and the self, By Winds and Tides takes a deep experimental dive into the birth of an idea—how it takes shape, how it is released. An allegorical quest, the film combines images and words into a singular sigh.

Iwasaki’s ink oscillates like an evil lava lamp that might actually be alive and its progression into more and more disturbing images create an impressive sense of dread in a film that is basically just some pencil drawings on a blank background. (Film School Rejects)

In 2017, a short anime film called Hypersonic Music Club was produced in Japan. It was directed and written by Osamu Kobayashi, a veteran of the industry who passed away in April 2021. For various reasons, this short anime was never released. It was made public on August 1, 2023.

An experimental short from Oskar Fischinger

Cores (Colours) is an experimental and independent animation by Clint Bones. Using Stop-Motion Animation, this film is about Palestine and their long combat with Israel. All that following a 60´s Psychedelia inspired visual.

The corner of a street is matched and mixed with the chant of a bird recorded on that same street. A symbiotic relationship is triggered: the rapid and successively repetitive montage cuts between the image of the street and the corners of the video frame itself produce new textures and shapes in our brain, whilst the sound follows the same rhythmic movements by emphasizing different “corners” (frequencies) from the bird’s singing. The energetic potency stemming from the junction of these elements creates a new image that is almost tactitle, maleable and rippling. The result is a somewhat humorous operation of the portuguese word "corner" throughout the different stages of making the piece, finally unveiling a piercing physical and kinetic experience for all the corners of our eyes and ears.

An experimental documentary/animation hybrid exploring likeness scanning, AI, and what that means for identity.