Smile!

Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying is a short meditation on love, grief, and imagination. The hand-drawn animated documentary was created through a collaboration between mother, elder and narrator Edith Almadi and filmmakers Natalie Baird and Toby Gillies. This poetic piece celebrates life and the transformative ability of art to elevate and transcend us. Through vivid drawings and Edith’s simple yet magical words, the film explores our enduring bond with loved ones who have passed. In honouring her son’s life within the cosmos, Edith’s artworks embody colours, shapes and metaphors that remind us of the timeless power of love, gravity, and grace until our final breaths.

A mysterious hero trapped in an Asylum decides to 'save' the unknown residents from the evil psychiatrist, Dr. Dog.

Animator Pavel Koutský's portrait of the man in the street; just an animal.

The last hundred years of Marxism, as seen through the eyes of animator Pavel Koutský.

A duck accidentally eats a radioactive burger that turns him giant. Shenanigans ensue when the people of Smallville panic and will do everything to demonize and destroy this innocent duck without realizing the damage they themselves do.

As the ‘flow’ progresses, the world where our ‘giant’ once stood gradually fades away, replaced by their inner worlds. Our ‘giant’ continues to advance endlessly, questioning the relationship between the world and oneself.

16mm color work by Stan Vanderbeek that takes his work away from the cutups and the commentary and lands him in the psychedelic and abstract. Opticals, repetitions, camera moves and zooms are what make up the bulk of this exploration into fluids. The results bridge that realm between hangout art piece and intersteller stoner trip.

A early puppet animation by Ferdinand Diehl

Biological Cycle No. 1

The series, based on the first 16mm film that was shot in a studio with Nakajima’s family and birds, moves through media and processing transformations over many iterations over the years. Once transferred to video, digital effects were added using the “Animaker,” an electronic image synthesizer that he invented (also nicknamed “Ko-puter”). Total of 6 parts exist.

Donald is washing windows on a high-rise; Pluto is his assistant, hauling the rope for the platform and refilling buckets but mostly sleeping. And when things are finally going well, Donald makes the mistake of tormenting a bee.

A chicken rescue mission gone wrong leads the activists into a dangerous wilderness where they experience situations that lead to new insights such as, nature is not a safe place for animals.

Hurikán rushes out to save his favourite beer stand from closure by fetching a new keg to impress the bartender he has a crush on. In a wild Prague district, he faces robbers, cops, and his own thirst.

The poignant story of migrants who are forced to leave their countries due to wars, conflicts, occupation, or chronic poverty, embarking on a journey towards unfamiliar lands in pursuit of a safer and more beautiful life. The animated film "Numbers" reminds us that humans are not mere statistics, but living beings.

Calango Lengo, from the northeast, has to fulfill his destiny, without having anything to put on his plate. In drought there is no other luck: to live fleeing death, as the mouse flees from the cat.

A young aristocrat is madly in love with an inventor, but her parents arrange her marriage to an old army general.

QUICK DREAM, subtitled "A Series of Exorcisms," is the result of this first assignment. As Mouris describes it, “This film is a series of visual experiments with magazine photograph cutouts that make moving collages; coloraid paper; Avery labels; whatever I could think of that might animate. It became the seedbed for everything that followed,” most notably FRANK FILM. As part of the project, the students’ films were subject to a round of guest criticism from artists and filmmakers Robert Breer and Red Grooms, who, as Mouris describes it, “praised our work and encouraged us to continue.” (Yale Film Archive)

Young Xime hopes to restore her grieving family by arranging a Día de Los Muertos altar...meanwhile a looming presence closes in.

A forest full of animated animals encourage a pair of snails, who are fully clad in black because they are in mourning for a dead leaf, to celebrate the new spring and reclaim the colors of life. Based on the children's poem by Jacques Prévert entitled "Chanson des escargots qui font à l'enterrement" ("Song of the snails who are on their way to a funeral").

A group of hapless survivors huddle in a desert cabin, surrounded by murderous cultists. But a far greater danger lurks in their midst: valid criticism.