We Hear the Distant Ring of Saturn

Animated story of a sad magician

Based on a poem by Samuil Marshak about an incredibly absent-minded man from Leningrad.

A girl named Patchwork and the real cloud fight the evil king Fontanius I and his treacherous subordinates.

Wasteland is a five-part anthology film that deals with isolation, mental illness, and the subjectivity of reality. Each of the five parts can be watched individually, but when viewed in sequence, each story brings out a more interesting and distinct context to its respective pieces.

Suicidal poet Archy tries to end his life by jumping off a bridge, but awakens to find he has assumed the life of a cockroach and has become a part of a community of creatures living in a newspaper office. He also discovers that he can still write poetry, using a typewriter, and begins to enjoy his new life. Archy develops deep feelings for the lovely but self-destructive cat Mehitabel, but will have to fight to win her from bad-boy tomcat Bill.

ALEXANDER THE GRAPE, an unfinished cut-paper animated short from Jim Henson from 1965, relates the fable of a young grape with big ambitions who learns that it is better to accept yourself than to try to be something you are not. The short was reconstructed from film and audio elements; images from Jim’s storyboard fill in missing segments of the animation.

In this episodic animated fantasy from France, an art teacher interprets a series of six fairy tales (each involving a prince or princess) with the help of two precocious students. Princes and Princesses was created using a special style of cutout animation, with black silhouetted characters performing the action against backlit backdrops in striking colors.

This short animation by artist and animator Evelyn Lambart offers a wordless plea for the right of all living creatures to a clean, unpolluted environment. With rich colour and intricate animated motion, the film features birds, butterflies and other woodland creatures succumbing to air pollution caused by human inventions.

Three artists struggling against the grid of society find spiritual renewal.

Three women, three generations. This is a Chinese family without love in 1940s.

The way bureaucracy works is told by men in the frames.

In this animated environmental parable, we find a people living in harmony with nature, until carelessness leads to the ravens' revenge. We follow a boy's courageous journey to the spirit world to find the only one who can save his village from the resulting darkness--the Lord of the sky. An artistic unity of form and content, Lord of the Sky is a dazzling combination of 3-D models, puppets, special effects and cut-out paper animation. Its intricate, beautifully rendered drawings reflect the natural environment and cultural heritage of the Pacific Northwest. The film speaks strongly of the need for ecological balance in the world.

A space occupies it, awaiting to be unlocked by a freeing action or notion. What lies ahead is its determination.

An experimental short film.

Hare enlists four brave friends to help him reclaim his home from the wily Fox.

In a white lace universe, three inventors create machines which are both pretty and useful. Unfortunately people do not understand them...

Three parallel stories depict the everyday insanity of the German capital, between motion and gridlock, the ticking clock and money trouble.

I told a story, Kirikou and the Sorceress, that reached a large number of people. It was the first time in my life. But this film was not my first one. I had also made short films, with a very limited distribution. Nobody saw them. I am lucky enough now to introduce them to you, to make these little mechanisms run again; they are the result of perseverance and passion. Besides the almost forgotten past, I have added a dance of today, which I conceived for Björk. Also something of the future, a post-scriptum to my film "Azur & Asmar". In addition to the films, I try to explain the happy magic of these bits of nothing which became my life. Michel Ocelot

A cut-out animation musical adaptation of the Irish mythological epic Táin Bó Cúailnge.

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.