This is the trailer for Tussilago, the latest short by Swedish director Jonas Odell. Story doesn’t sound like typical fare: “In 1977 West German terrorist Norbert Kröcher was arrested for having planned to kidnap the Swedish politician Anna-Great Leijon. Among the people arrested during the following raids was Kröcher’s former girlfriend ‘A.’ This is her story.”

Stylistically, it builds on Odell’s prior two shorts—Lies and Never Like the First Time!—which were biographical narratives combining an artistic use of rotoscope and live-actors with motion graphic embellishments. Tussilago debuts the end of this month at the Göteborg International Film Festival and will screen at the Berlin International Film Festival next month. Other festivals will undoubtedly follow. On a related note, Revolver, a beloved early short that Odell co-directed, can be seen in its entirety on the Filmtecknarna website.

Hulu’s library of animated TV shows, shorts and features is growing more impressive by the week. Hulu’s content includes current series (The Simpsons, Family Guy), anime (One Piece, Inuyasha), animated shorts (the Koji Yamamura library, Pink Panther, Ant and the Aardvark, Tijuana Toads), features (American Pop, The Secret of NIMH), and old TV series (Stressed Eric, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Fat Albert, Drawn Together, He-Man). Hulu isn’t perfect—most of their content is geo-targeted for specific territories, some of the animation is only available for limited periods of time, and the videos have embedded advertising (though the percentage of ads relative to content isn’t unbearable). But even with these issues, it’s a small price to pay for the opportunity to program your personal ‘cartoon network.’ Here’s to hoping that Hulu continues to emphasize animation amongst their other offerings.

Here’s an example of what can be found on Hulu—Koji Yamamura’s Kid’s Castle:

(Thanks, Max Porter)

I got a kick out of this trailer for Storm, a nine-minute animated short based on a ‘beat poem’ by Australian comedian and writer Tim Minchin. The film is directed by DC Turner, and animated by Turner and Fraser Davidson. The filmmakers have a blog where they’re sharing artwork from the short while Minchin’s original poem can be heard here.

(Thanks, Dan Pinto)

Here’s a film I hadn’t seen before, and I want thank Brew reader Michael Lanigan for bringing it to my attention. It’s a great example of current Russian animation, much of which is still unseen by the Western world. The Stormy Petrel (2004) is by Alexei Turkus (full credits here), and was produced at Russia’s leading animation studio Argus International. It satirizes the poem Song of the Stormy Petrel by Maxim Gorky and serves as a commentary on the Russian educational system. It’s nine minutes and definitely worth watching – it gets crazier and crazier as it goes on.

It’s easy for the eyes to get lost in this mesmerizing piece of animation by Malcolm Sutherland (The Astronomer’s Dream). Narrative images pop out of some of the abstract forms which makes it that much more exciting to watch. Soundtrack is by Sutherland too.

JibJab has released their annual “year in review” short with a tongue-in-cheek summary of the highs and (mostly) lows of the past twelve months. They’ve supplemented it with an exhaustive set of blog posts documenting the production process scene-by-scene. This year’s edition is notable for its lo-fi aesthetic with most of the visuals created in-camera. It was surprising to learn on their blog how many of the elements that I initially assumed used digital compositing were actually made with cut-outs, replacement stop-mo animation, and puppetry.

Animator Doug Compton used a classic 1955 Stan Freberg recording as the basis for his Christmas card this year: a fully animated version of Nuttin’ For Christmas which he drew and animated every frame of.

For reference, the song’s lyrics (written by Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett) are here. Enjoy – and Merry Christmas!

Electropolis is “the product of roughly 7 months of work from 13 students in the 3rd year of the BAA Animation program at Sheridan College.” It’s interesting to note the rise of student films made in groups at North American animation schools. No doubt the success of group student films from French animation schools like Gobelins and Supinfocom have played a role in encouraging this trend.