Written, directed and animated by Frederic Siegel. He is a Swiss director, illustrator and visual artist who studied at the Lucerne School of Art & Design.

Synopsis: A face is born out of chaos. It struggles to exist. It struggles to find its purpose. It struggles to sit on a chair. In fact, it struggles with a lot of things. But thank god, it’s trying.

Directed by Claude Cloutier.

Synopsis: With school, tennis lessons, swimming lessons, art classes, homework and piano practice, a young boy leads such a regimented life that he has no more time just to be a kid.

Inspired by Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Overdose (1994) pleads for children’s right to rest and leisure.

Directed by Jonghoon Lee. Produced by VCRWORKS, an animation and picture book studio based in Seoul, South Korea.

Written, directed and animated by David Shen Miller.

Synopsis: A man finds himself trapped inside a room, his feet muddied from the dirty floor. Unable to get out, he spots a broom nearby and tries to clean the dirty floor. He succeeds, perhaps thinking he will be freed, but then he realizes he has left dirty footprints from working to wipe away the old ones.

Stuck in this paradox, the man attempts to solve the riddle he’s found himself in. He tries to clean his feet; he tries to find a way of walking on the wall instead. But no matter what he does, the room will never become entirely clean. At his lowest point, though, he finds a way to solve his problem — and realizes that perhaps it wasn’t such a problem in the first place.

A short film by Wendy Tilby & Amanda Forbis.

Synopsis: In 1917 two ships collided in the Halifax Harbour, causing the largest accidental explosion in history. Among the tragic stories of the disaster is the remarkable account of a sailor who, blown skyward from the docks, flew a distance of 2 kilometres before landing uphill, naked and unharmed. The Flying Sailor is a contemplation of his journey.

Drawing on accounts of traumatic shock and near-death experiences, Tilby and Forbis consider the kind of cataclysmic moment that pulls us from our path, strips us bare, and utterly shifts our perspective. By suspending the Sailor in a state of near-death, the film contemplates the stuff of life that is at once fleeting, profound, and utterly insignificant.