Shorts Competition Program 4: Animated World

Running time: 104 mins

Computer graphics have, without a doubt, dominated animated features over this past decade despite the best efforts of Wallace, Gromit and Nick Park. Realism, detail and action have never been better and Cinequest has just the program to prove it with computer animation put to spectacular use in a story of love at first sight between two rodents who are worlds apart: a lab rat and a sewer rat. We also have the inspiring tale of a fledgling that lures an office drone (with a bad comb-over) out of an existential funk. Despite the prevalence of CG, traditional animation methods are well represented in this collection. Stop-motion, cell animation, film collage and even Indonesian shadow puppetry make appearances in this wide-ranging program, touching on the subject of death and rebirth.

Bill Maxey

13 Ways to Die at Home - dir. Lee Lanier
Film Noir - dir. Osbert Parker
First Flight - dir. Cameron Hood and Kyle Jefferson
La Gallina Ciega - dir. Isabel Herguera
Life in Transition - dir. John R. Dilworth
Loom - dir. Scott Kravitz
One Rat Short - dir. Alex Weil
Our Man in Nirvana - dir. Jan Koester
Perpetuum Mobile - dir. Enrique Garcia and Raquel Ajofrin
Phantom Canyon - dir. Stacey Steers
Spin Cycle - dir. Dave Rubinson
Startle Pattern - dir. Eric Patrick
The Toll - dir. Zachary Pike
Ujbaz Izbeneki Has Lost His Soul - dir. Neil Jack
Windows, Masks and Doors - dir. Sarah Orenstein