ANIMATION SCREENING: BEST OF PICTOPLASMA 2026
The best of Pictoplasma’s official 2026 animation selection presents hand-picked short films featuring the latest and freshest generation of characters in motion, from narrative shorts and music visuals to experimental animation and anything in between.
We're Kinda Different
2025 / CA / 3’17’’
Ben Meinhardt
A singing butt has an adventure through a mundane office building with profound results.
I Have A
2025 / UK / 4’00’’
Rory Waudby-Tolley
Sound design: Christopher Swaine
Production: Wheelhouse
A man lists the things that he has.
Robert Yoghurt – Bath Time
2025 / UK / 0’35’’
Sacha Beeley
Production: A Studio Digital
Robert Yoghurt has his bath time.
Night Boots
2024 / FR / 10’00’’
Pierre-Luc Granjon
Music: Timothée Jolly
Production: Am Stram Gram
Leaving home in the middle of the night, a child and a curious little creature explore the forest to meet its nocturnal inhabitants.
Fury
2025 / ES / 4’00’’
Choche Hurtado
Sound design: Elías Fraguas
A pair of twin sisters hate each other because they remind each other of themselves – and where they come from.
Fit Check
2025 / US / 1’00’’
Kyle Brooks
Music: Rani Sharone
Sound design: Rani Sharone
Production: A Studio Digital
A man with a problem.
The 12 Inch Pianist
2025 / US / 7’28’’
Lucas Ansel
Character design: Lucas Ansel & Jenny Jayne
Music: Madison Willing
Sound design: Aidan Gale Burke
What begins as a bar joke quickly unravels into a darkly funny, unexpected story about self-acceptance, desire, and queer identity.
Kriill – Other I
2025 / FR / 2’56’’
Alina Popescu
Music: Kriill
Production: Opale Prod.
A young girl offers gifts of devotion to an otherworldly deity, soon escalating into brutal sacrifices of her body.
The Tragedy of Madame Esther, A Long Way Home, An Unfortunate Incident
2019-2022 / IL / 0’30’’
Anat Efrati
A burst of story fragments unfolding through rhythm, sound, humour, and composition.
Crossing the Road Guide
2026 / UK / 1’45’’
Barney Abrahams
Music: Samuel McCarthy
A short didactic guide on how to cross a road.
Un peu plus d'action
2025 / FR / 1’00’’
Alexis Beaumont
Music: Yoann Roussin
Sound design: Yoann Roussin
During a protest, two law enforcement teams face off on the field.
Paul Y Sus Amigos
2025 / US / 1’18’’
Rafillo (Rafael Esteban Trujillo)
Music: Rani Sharone
Sound design: Rafillo, Rani Sharone
Production: A Studio Digital / BentoBox Entertainment
Paul brings home a date.
Mr Legs
2024 / AU / 1’43“
Sean Zwan
Sound design: Nick Campbell, Umbrella Sound Studios
Production: Ivan Dixon
A lonely man has an unexpected encounter with an entity that has the mind of a toddler.
OK Go – Impulse Purchase
2025 / UK, FI, US / 3’13’’
Lucas Zanotto, Will Anderson
Character design: Lucas Zanotto
Music: OK Go
Production: Blender Studio
A procedural character rolls toward the singularity.
Smokedog
2025 / AU / 6’00’’
Andrew Onorato
Music: Andrew Onorato + Gil Cerrone
Sound design: Andrew Onorato + Todor Minojlovic
Production: Chop Studio
Smokedog goes about his day.
Car Park
2025 / AU / 3’37“
Aaron McDonald, Leanne Lee
Two strangers meet in a car park for a secretive rendezvous.
A Pint of Bitter
2025 / IE / 8’58’’
Conor Kehelly
Music: Conor Kehelly
You are trying to enjoy a quiet pint in the pub but a patron and his son seemingly have a problem with your demeanour.
ANIMATION SCREENING: BEST OF BALKAN ANIMATION 2026
Curated by our friends from TAF – TAF Thessaloniki Animation Festival (Greece), WFAF World Festival of Animated Film Varna (Bulgaria), Animest International Animation Film Festival (Romania), World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb (Croatia), International Festival of Animated Films, Anifilm (Czechia), AFN Animation Festival Network.
Best of Romanian Animation
curated by Animest International Animation Film Festival (Romania)
On Saint Nicolas' Eve
Romania, 2025, 11’
Director: Emy Mirel Ivașcă
Animation: Mirel Ivașcă, Editing: Mirel Ivașcăm, Producer: Emy Mirel Ivașcă
A boy remembers a Saint Nicholas evening spent with his father.
The Hunter
Romania 2025, 6’42
Director: Costin Chioreanu
Script: Costin Chioreanu, Animation: Costin Chioreanu, Editing: Olivia Chioreanu, Costin Chioreanu, Sound design: Costin Chioreanu, Soundtrack: Cristian Siteavu, Sound mastering: George Bokos, Producer: Costin Chioreanu
While hunting an everchanging prey, deep into the vast forest of perception, a restless character becomes captive in a surreal time capsule loop of overthinking. When he finally unfreezes, he finds nothing but the closure of his lifetime, while he becomes an observed thought.
Triassic Cuddle
Romania, 2025, 5’28
Director: Iulia Turicianu
Animation: Iulia Turicianu, Editing: Iulia Turicianu, Producer: Unatc I.L Caragiale
A small prehistoric amphibian goes on a journey with the goal of finding its mate.
White Noise
Romania, 2024, 5’25
Director: Alexia-Ioana Badea
Animation: Alexia-Ioana Badea, Editing: Alexia-Ioana Badea, Producer: Alexia-Ioana Badea
A child wants to express himself in his own way through the horns that grow on his head. This becomes almost impossible due to his abusive father, who wants to be like him. After they keep breaking the horns, the kid ends up resorting to some sad but necessary habits to keep his parents happy.
Zero Point
Romania, 2025, 4’45
Director: Biró Borbála
Animation: Balázs Zoltán, Editing: Balázs Zoltán, Producer: Balázs Zoltán
In a symbolic world where spheres fall from the sky and grow from the ground, a Spirit undergoes daily rebirth. To approach its true Self, it must first drift away from the Ego.
Kobza
Romania, 2025, 12’
Director: Laura Pop
Script: Cristian Pascariu, Animation: Doru Mărgărit, Andrei Derculescu, Sound: Ann Kuznetzova, Music: Alexei Țurcan, Producer: Mihai Mitrică
A grumpy old man thinks that by erasing people’s memories, he brings happiness to a broken 1920s steam-punk town. Only when facing his most painful memory, he learns how wrong he was.
Mind Trap
Romania, 2025, 1’20
Director: Laczi Lóránd
Producer: Laczi Lóránd
The main character is a young skateboarder who takes refuge in his hobby. The silence of the night is broken only by the sound of the skateboard and a flashing light. He feels as if he is living in a loop and wants to break free from it…
Grandpa is sleeping
Romania 2025, 13’
Director: Matei Branea
Producer: Helga Fodorean and Mihai Mitrică
Six-year-old Alma won’t accept her Grandpa’s endless sleep, so she takes him out for one last adventure together.
Best of Greek Animation
curated by TAF Thessaloniki Animation Festival (Greece)
STAVROS THE GREAT: STARRING IN A BALKAN CARTOON
Director: Kostas Firinidis, Greece, 2024, 9 min
In this (pilot) film Stavros learns the value of friendly competition. A satirical take on modern day Greece from the eyes of cartoonist.
I think artists and politicians are a very similar thing
Director: Nikolas Protopapas, Greece, 2024, 6 min
Mysterious twin brothers have a life-changing encounter with God.
Cut the Tie
Director: Anna Oikonomou, Greece, 2024, 4 min
A girl stands in front of her mirror, struggling with her body image. Dissatisfied with her measurements, she is pulled into an imaginary world where a measuring tape transforms into a living ribbon that dances with her. What begins as harmony soon turns into control…
The Synthetic Age
Director: Dimitris Armenakis, Greece, 2025, 8 min
In a city where people consume cartoons, a dog reconciles with its old friends, and together, they try to escape from humans.
How Smart Are Crows
Director: Irida Zhonga, Greece, 2025, 5 min
In one of Aesop’s fables, a crow is searching for water. It spies a pitcher— but the water inside is beyond its reach. So, the crow begins dropping in pebbles. One-by-one, they displace the water, and the crow quenches its thirst. This is just one of many fascinating displays of intelligence from crows so let’s dig into what makes this bold, brainy family of songbirds so smart.
ST. PAHOMIOS
Director: George Nathenas, Greece, 2023, 4 min
St Pahomios is a short story of a solitary man that uses a magic potion to transform into a snake in order to make love with an unknown woman that visited his monastery.
ASOTOS
Director: George Nathenas, Greece, 2025, 9min
The story of a man, lost in the afterlife, who meets a stranger that came as a disturbance of his routine.
Pavlos Pavlidis & Dimitris Samolis: Megas Raftis
Director: Thomas Kunstler, Greece, 2024, 4 min
Dimitris and Pavlos are sitting in their favourite cafe as usual when suddenly a misplaced tile on the floor opens a window over the secret world behind our reality.
Prikosymphono
Directors: Elena Gazi, Dolan Bailey, Alejandra Diaz, Greece, 2025, 5 min
Leonardo Dal Fabbro Placed in Lefkada, an island in the Ionian Sea, a little girl finds a paper from 1955, that contains a list of objects that belonged to her great aunt and proceeds to ask her grandfather about it. He explains to her that this is the list of her dowry, an old Greek tradition…
The Gabardine
Director: Kimon Papadatos, Greece, 2024, 4 min
A story of my Greek grandfather during the Nazi occupation of Athens.
Holy shit
Directors: Taxiarchis Deligiannis, Vasilis Tsiouvaras, Greece, 2025, 5 min
In short, silent scenes, we watch modern-day Athens, Greece, where old buildings, offices, open air cinemas etc., are rapidly transformed into hotels and other places of accommodation for tourists. The city is suffocating by countless tourists, who are piling up in hotels, in various sites, on beaches, bars, restaurants, etc. It’s a complete chaos, and it is getting worse day by day…
AFN Presents: That’s What She Said, Vol. 02
with the support of World Festival of Animated Film – Animafest Zagreb (Croatia) & International Festival of Animated Films, Anifilm (Czechia)
The second collection of films by female directors from Central and Eastern Europe is once again composed of films screened by the members of the Animation Festival Network (Anifilm, Animafest, Fest Anča, Animest and Animateka). The showcase offers various films and different views on the world and animation.
Keep Out
Director: Tan-Lui Chan, Czech Republic, 2023, 8 min
A disturbing story set in the near future. People are holed up in their small dwellings and live in a virtual world. Everyone films and streams various videos. They don’t have a clue that they’re not free until one of them goes outside. But the discovery of the outer reality is something their virtual masters aren’t happy to see.
I Died in Irpin
Director: Anastasiia Falileieva, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, 2024, 11 min
On February 24th in the morning my boyfriend and I decided to go from Kyiv to Irpin to see his parents. It is hard for me to recall the chronology of those days, my mind blocks and minimizes all the memories, erases them, but the only thing I know for sure is that every day everything rapidly became worse.
Butterfly
Director: Sunčana Brkulj, Croatia, Denmark, 2023, 8 min
A community of garden creatures all contribute to the flow of life, using water from a fountain. When a butterfly gets stuck in the fountain, they’re faced with an unfamiliar situation.
Dream Rotation
Directors: Katarína Jelínková, Darya Sidorova, Viktória Zimmermannová, Rebeka Vakrčková, Slovakia, 2023, 9 min
A lost soul makes its way through the thicket of the forest at night. He wanders aimlessly until he comes upon a group of those like himself, sitting by a fire. Night and fire freed them, and now everyone is ready to share the story that brought them to this forest.
Such Miracles Do Happen
Director: Barbara Rupik, Polsko / Poland, 2023, 14 min
An original, deep and visually daring puppet film in which all the statues in the area come to life, leave their roadside shrines and pedestals and calmly set off straight ahead, all in the same direction. People watch the phenomenon with growing anxiety. Only a little girl with a boneless body marvels at the procession of the unusual figures with pure fascination.
Three Birds
Director: Zarja Menart, Slovenia, Croatia, 2024, 8 min
The wise birdwoman sends three birds to guide a girl into the dark unknown landscapes of her inner world.
Shoes and Hooves
Director: Viktória Traub, Hungary, 2024, 15 min
A pedicurist in a small-town populated by human-animal hybrids, Paula the lonely centaur-girl longs to have human feet. When she meets Arnold the handsome crocodile-man, it is love at first sight, but their romantic idyll is soon shattered by conflict. Paula is faced with a choice: love or self-acceptance?