The model work is magnificent, from the appropriately terrifying design of the TV characters to the careful distinctions in style between that world and the apparent reality of the one in crisis.
Mary, Billybud and Fumbleton are three miniature actors who perform in a 1980s kids' TV series. When the creator of the series dies, they are left alone in the studio to make increasingly strange episodes for their fans.
Watching the plucky little bird in flight gives us a tour of the battlefield, and Mullins does as much as he can with the battered landscape, but he’s hampered by the fact that audiences will have seen all this before.
Two soldiers on opposite sides of a conflict play a joyful game of chess with the aid of a carrier pigeon.
Holmes' direction is as fluid as Doherty's movement, as her cinematographer Luca Truffarelli engages his camera in its own dance with Doherty, also capturing the reactions of those watching her at work.
Profile of dancer/choreographer Oona Doherty and her show Hope Hunt And The Ascension Into Lazarus.
Small movements – the awkwardness of a child shrinking into himself, the hesitation before speaking, the forced confidence of fitting in – gain an almost painful realism.
The story follows Tsubasa, a quiet boy, and Akitarō, a child prodigy. Jealousy and misunderstanding sever their childhood bond. Years later, as their lives take different directions, each must make a decision when the weight of the past resurfaces.
Between interviews and archive footage and Lumo's/Mohsen's/Calum's own words there's a lot to draw from here.
Glasgow rapper Lumo committed suicide aged 21, sending shockwaves through the Scottish hip hop community. As family and friends struggle to make sense of his death, they uncover hidden clues in lyrics and videos he left behind.
Weans in hi-viz and high excitement, running and playing and shouting and learning. It is a delight to watch them at play.
Following lockdown, children from Maryhill in Glasgow express their rights to outdoor play and learning as they explore a green space that was established through 10 years of community activism.
With a carefully measured pace and a lot of focus on light and movement, the imagery here will be particularly effective at engaging young dyslexic people’s minds.
A young girl is distraught when she looks up dyslexia and sees it described as a lifelong disability, but a magical adventure teaches her to look at it differently.
This is one of those films whose real power lies outside the span of its intentions.
A chance meeting leads the filmmaker to track down his fifth grade class and fifth grade teacher to examine their memory of, and complicity in, a bullying incident which took place 50 years ago.
Katagiri’s work utilises a dramatic form which breaks down over time, becoming increasingly surreal as Miki disconnects from the world as we know it.
A 27-year-old working in an architectural firm wakes up in her small apartment, pulled out of her sleepy memory. Her world is quiet and strange, but will soon be interrupted by a transformative experience spurred by a half-remembered wolf bite.
An old man lives alone in a small hut by the railway which is soon to be demolished. He spends his days cycling and looking for work mending windows until one day his routine is interrupted by figures that appear to be different to everyone else…
After moving into an old isolated house with her newly-single mother and her little sister, 12-year-old Cassie begins to suspect that her family is being tormented by the spirit of a sadistic river witch.
White Nanny Black Child strikes a reparative chord, but might leave the inquisitive viewer wondering about those at the periphery of the film
A group of adults find solace in sharing their experiences of growing up as the children of Black Nigerian immigrants who were fostered by white British families.
Wilson is superb. Brilliant sound design and editing layers the noise we hear so that most viewers will be able to understand its effects without having to suffer to that degree themselves. Her performance does the rest.
A doctor refers a woman with an acute and painful sensitivity to sound to an experiment in therapy involving the world's quietest room.
Who's Who In Mycology is one of those short films that's so richly imagined that it feels like a fragment of a much bigger work.
A young trombone player spends an adventurous night trying to open an impossible bottle of wine after carrying an unconscious woman back to her flat, in which everything seems to be on the verge of falling over.
Animating on toilet paper, which soaks up colour in unpredictable ways, would never be easy, but Samo has challenged herself further by creating each frame based on memory and instinct.
A depiction of the animation process using toilet paper in place of film, exploring an attempt to create art in a chaotic world.
Cinematographer Christine Leuhusen also skillfully employs light, so the action moves from a warm shared bathtime to the much starker vibe of Kelly’s dad’s apartment, which matches the mood.
A young woman tries to cope after dropping her daughter off with her ex.
What does it mean when a woman cannot control the visual language through which her body is presented?
A filmic response to Lynn Hershman Leeson’s text, Romancing The Anti-body (1995), exploring the jarring juxtapositions of friction, toxicity, joy and liberation that trans people, queers and femmes experience when playing as their own custom character creations in video game spaces.
