Run for your Life

A hopeless romantic learns a thing or two about relationships when he gets too close to the perfect couple.

An urban gay couple dispute their very different views on holding hands in public, which leads to a much bigger exploration of their relationship.

An Ustad is leading a mass prayer. But something disrupts his concentration. How can he focus back to his prayer?

Two boxers climb into barrels and proceed to pummel each other in this novelty film from the Lumières.

Several fragments of one day in Leningrad in the autumn of 1989, refracted in the imagination of the artist.

The conflict between ducklings and frogs escalates into war. However, a lightning strike makes the fighters realize the trivial nature of their battle.

Arichan the Ant finds a violin in a sandbox and keeps it. However, realizing how important it is to its owner, he returns it to her.

In 1955 Tadahito Mochinaga was asked to create commercials for Asahi beer, which he created using stop-motion, followed by the 1956 short film "Beer Mukashi Mukashi" (Beer, those were the days...), created specifically for theatres. With the help of Kikachiro Kawamoto and Noburo Ofuji, this is the first animated short/commercial in stop-motion made for Japanese cinemas!

Fuku-chan was one of the most popular newspaper comic strip boy-characters in Japan at the time. The film portrays a submarine attack on an enemy cargo ship. Though this, too, was to boost patriotism, Japanese children particularly enjoyed the scenes in which the kitchen crew cooked in the submarine kitchen. Released in November of the same year, the food shortage was quite serious in Japan, and the abundant food supply in the submarine kitchen -- vegetables, fruit, fish, rice, and more which were already luxury items in Japan at the time -- was prepared into various dishes along with a merry, rhythmic song.

When a samurai witnesses a dancing maiden being kidnapped by ruffians, he rescues the poor damsel and takes her to the spring flower dance.

An early silhouette animated film by Hidehiko Okuda, Hakusan Kimura and Tomu Uchida. The original story is a Buddhist tale of a young lady who saved a crab (a spiritual being according to Japanese Buddhist faith) from being eaten, and was later saved from danger by the same crab.

A western occupation propaganda film in which a boy repairs a western style doll that comes to life and uses a magic pen to rebuild his bleak and war torn world into a happy place resembling western civilization.

A war propaganda film by Oofuji Noburou.

Short animated film from 1947

Butterfly, a faithful Japanese wife, waits patiently in Nagasaki for the return of her American husband, Pinkerton. She sees the Stars and Stripes fluttering atop an approaching ship and rightly surmises that Pinkerton is onboard. However, the feckless foreigner is arriving in the company of his "real" Caucasian wife, causing the heartbroken Butterfly to commit suicide. This masterpiece of Japanese silhouette animation makes the best of its source material.

Short animated film by Yasuji Murata

A story of three little bears going on an adventure to find the lost little duck.

Short animated film by Mitsuyo Seo

A Vietnamese short anti-American propaganda animation.