Jukai

Pineapple Calamari dreams of being a horse racing champion. He lives with two inseparable women who share a very special connection. But when tragedy befalls this happy family, their social dynamic takes a drastic turn to the unexpected.

To the toccata portion of Bach's "Toccata and fugue in D minor," we watch a play of sorts. Blue smoke forms a background; a grid of black lines is the foreground. Behind the lines, a triangle appears, then patterns of multiple triangles. Their movements reflect the music's rhythm. Behind the barrier of the black lines, the triangle moves, jumps, and takes on multiple shapes. In contrast with the blue and the black, the triangles are warm: orange, red, yellow. The black lines bend, swirl into a vortex, then disappear. The triangle pulsates and a set of many of them rises.

Parabola is a celebration of film’s ability to create new ways of seeing the forms around us. Creating juxtapositions between light/shadow, stasis/motion, and form/music, this black-and-white short invites us to see the parabolic curve, or “nature’s poetry,” as both invigorating and beguiling.

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

Two tree-creatures hibernating underneath the bark of their trees wake up by the quakes produced by a snowfall outside. After going out, they become friends and delight at playing with the snow.

Development in long-range travel and the growing importance of the Arctic and Antarctic regions make it necessary to understand how maps may be misleading. Experiments with a grapefruit illustrate the difficulty of presenting a true picture of the world on a flat surface and it is concluded that the globe is the most accurate way of representing the earth.

An animated depiction of the experiences of dealing with a body dysmorphic disorder, disordered eating and scoliosis. From its pristinely rendered opening frames, Katherine Grubb’s heartrending, deeply personal film plunges us into one woman’s emotional isolation and her struggles with a distorted self-image.

As the balance of the world turns upside down for the Anishinabek people, the elder Naamowin builds a healing drum to save his grandson and his people

A personal interpretation of Norwegian history - starring a grandmother who during the Second World War loses her job ironing the King's shirts. Instead she gains access to the enemy's uniforms, and inspires her own brand of resistance fighters, the "Shirt Guerillas".

Seasick is a meditative exploration of ones love of the sea to the soundtrack of traditional Croatian music.

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

Fragmentos de Sal

Partially based on a poem by Gabriela Mistral.

In the animated short My Obscure Object of Desire, the heart will go to any lengths to become the object of its love's desire. So it woos, coos and even "awoos." But in the end not even the heart can always get what it wants.

A little pig dreams of being able to fly, but, try as he might, he fails to get up into the air. All the other pigs are heartily amused by his hapless efforts and so, the little pig has no choice but to go out into the big wide world in search of someone who can teach him how to fly.

Mr. Conductor's supply of magic gold dust, which allows him to travel between Shining Time and Thomas's island, is critically low. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how to get more. Meanwhile, Thomas is fending off attacks by the nasty diesel engines. Getting more gold dust will require help from Mr. C's slacker cousin, his new friend Lily and her morose grandfather, plus the secret engine.

Several scary black-and-white animated segments in different styles appeal to our fear(s) of the dark.

It's a starry night in a poor neighborhood in Latin America. Óscar is sleeping in his room when a sudden wind wakes him up. From his window he sees a little goldfish in a dirty puddle gasping for air. Óscar will try to save the goldfish through a rampant adventure full of mysterious challenges.

A dog has a cat inside him. The two fight to get on, with one's desires always getting in the way of the other's. However the conflict cannot go on forever and the two learn the hard way to find common ground and work out something for themselves.

Our free culture anthem gets a fabulous arrangement by Nik Phelps. Vocals by Connie Champagne. Animation and song by Nina Paley.