Caries (2025)

Original title: Karies

A wild shaman of woman does cave paintings on the white cave walls that turn out to be tooth decay in a weather presenter’s mouth and she has to dodge soup and toothbrushing. She is joined by some more friends when the chef at a local café spits in the man’s soup. Disaster strikes when the tooth gets too black and the man goes to the dentist. The chef thinks it is funny the man’s tooth was seen on TV and they have a romance which also works out well for the mouth shaman in the end.

Nice hand-coloured watercolour and ink animated that seems to be hand drawn which is a lot of work these days there is a reason why people do it on the computer.

A nice self-contained story with some “everyday fantasy” elements and a funny joke at the end.

Film details:

Director: Aline Höchli

Country: Switzerland

Language: No Dialogue

Length: 10mins

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-uKIe-WLD4

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Glasses (2025)

Original title: An-Gyeong

A woman breaks her glasses and during the eye test starts to hallucinate seeing strange figures that seem to be a different aspect of herself each time. Turns out it was about self-acceptance all along!

Simple black, white and grey animation with some photo elements is enough to tell the story in this case and is very effective with the style and mood it is going for. Does not seem like it is wanting in any department in presentation.

Not sure it is really saying that much but it is what it is.

Film details:

Writer/Director: Yumi Joung

Country:  South Korea

Language: No Dialogue

Length: 16mins

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYIIbMlpoqg

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As If the Earth Had Swallowed Them Up (2025)

Original title: Como si la tierra se las hubiera tragado

A young woman goes back to her hometown in Mexico remembering happier times and also what made her leave in the first place. Dedicated to the 10 women a day who go missing in Mexico and are never heard from again. A nameless unspeakable horror which quite rightly is too much for your brain to comprehend when they try to show it on screen.

Not sure about this being made in another country and not Mexico but sometimes looking from the outside in is a lot easier to get these things made than actually being there.

A serious message film that hopefully gets a wider audience and gets the issues out there.

Film details:

Director: Natalia León

Country: France

Language: Spanish

Length: 14mins

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHj-AxSXUBs

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Murmuration (2025)

Original title: Zwermen

A man in a nursing home becomes bored of the routine and longs to join the birds, over time he turns into a bird and then flies away.

Nice puppet stop motion animation combined with some background 2D animation for the flock of birds in the background. The faces reminded me of the “pickled grannies” you used to be able to get in jars or was that just my mum making them?

A fun story with a great art style and unique looking characters. I liked that the staff and the other residents of the nursing home still treat him the same when he starts to turn into a bird like they had seen this a hundred times.

Film details:

Writer/Director: Tim Frijsinger, Janneke Swinkels

Country: Belgium, Netherlands

Language: No Dialogue

Length: 12mins

Trailer

https://vimeo.com/1058934751

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Retirement Plan (2024)

Ray talks about all the things he is going to do in his life once he retires from the mundane to the extraordinary. Nothing seems to be left out. By the time you have retired then you would have missed everything you wanted to do if you wait until then!

Flat colour with a big black outline but it suits the character and story it is telling. Is quite funny and sweet at times.

This one got quite a few laughs due to the stuff the main character was describing getting more and more outlandish and the character backtracking when even they realise it. Sure to be an audience favourite at festivals and such.

Film details:

Director: John Kelly

Screenwriter: Tara Lawall, John Kelly

Key Cast: Domhnall Gleeson

Country: Ireland

Language: English

Length: 9mins

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Af9ui489Xw

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The Fix-It-Man and the Fix-It-Wooman (2024)

A young woman on country wants to go into Alice Springs dancing to find a nice man. At the same time a fix-it-man also wants to go dancing. They do meet up in the club but the man splits his pants and runs out. Luckily the woman is skilled and sewing and they have something to bond over so it works out in the end.

Before the movie the director said the creators of the artwork in the movies wanted to come but had the Darwin Arts Festival on that weekend. They were originally going to put wires in the fabric sculptures but they were too fragile. Had to be scanned into the computer and animated that way. I liked all the flat surfaces had scanned artworks on them also.

A bit of a short one but it was very creative and had a lot of skills from a lot of people on display and it looks like a lot of care was taken with it. I have recommended it to people to look out for already.

Film details:

Director: Cornelius Ebatarinja, Nelson Armstrong

Screenwriter: Rhonda Sharpe, Courtney Collins

Key cast: Vanessa Splinter, Roxanne Petrick, Cornelius Ebatarinja

Country: Australia

Language: English

Length: 9mins

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ4u8QTyWg0

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Shadows (2024)

A teenage girl talks about growing up in Iraq and having to move to another country for an arranged marriage with a husband who had mental issues. She had a child but it was taken off her by the family as they said she was too young to raise it. She escapes to a third country as a refugee and recounts her experiences.

A very expressive art style heavy on the metaphor with the big deer who is the spirit animal of the young woman it seems. She also thanked the film’s creators for drawing her baby as she does not have any photos of it and presumably will never see it again.

Film details:

Writer/Director: Rand Beiruty

Country: France, Jordan

Language: Arabic, German

Length: 12mins

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WsR1Kkaie8

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Water Girl (2025)

Telling the entire life story of a woman who grew up in a fishing village where the women went and fished often topless for shellfish and sea urchins and sold them straight to the vendor on the beach. Over the years the water gets more polluted and the pickings slimmer and they eventually throw seaweed at the vendor but continue to live where they know and continue with their life.

A very expressive movie even though there is no dialogue. The animation style and watercolour backdrops and what seems to be water soluble oil pastel for the characters as there are tones but it also has textures.

“It’s just like life you gotta take the funny with the tragic” applies here as shows the main character’s entire life including personal tragedy but she still seems happy overall.

A good one to end the programme on as it does have the reflection needed to send the audience off on a good note.

Film details:

Writer/Director: Sandra Desmazières

Country: France, Netherlands, Portugal

Language: No Dialogue

Length: 15mins

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo3FEZtoaY8