Yesterday, in honor of International Animation Day, the National Film Board of Canada launched a month-long online showcase of animated shorts called Get Animated! This is the seventh edition of the annual festival, but the first year that the NFB is presenting all of the films online. The collection of shorts will remain online through November 30th, and there’s some real gems in the bunch:

You can enjoy a selection of recent films that picked up awards this year at home and abroad: Patrick Bouchard’s Bydlo, which was honored at the Jutras and at the Clermont-Ferrand festival; Diane Obomsawin’s Kaspar (Inspired by the Life of Kaspar Hauser), which won an award in Poznan, Poland; Franck Dion’s Edmond Was a Donkey, which garnered 24 awards, including the special jury prize at Annecy and a Gémeaux; Michèle Lemieux’s Here and the Great Elsewhere, which collected nine awards, including the grand prize at Cinanima in Portugal; Martine Chartrand’s MacPherson, winner of two awards at the Montreal World Film Festival; Dominic Etienne Simard’s Paula, honored at Interfilm Berlin and at the Canadian Screen Awards; and Renaud Hallée’s The Clockmakers, which won an honorable mention at the Ottawa International Animation Festival.

Petra’s Poem, a sensitive and touching film by Shira Avni; Paul Driessen’s Oedipus, a Canada-Netherlands co-production that collected prizes in Portugal and Brazil; Jenn Strom’s Assembly, inspired by Studio D filmmakers and dedicated to the memory of Kathleen Shannon; Sylvie Trouvé’s Reflection, an exploration of Montreal through an abstract lens; Jeffrey St. Jules’s Let the Daylight into the Swamp, winner of two awards at Yorkton, including best film; and Élise Simard’s My Little Underground, a sombre and beautiful autobiographical story.

The Get Animated! website also includes spotlights on two filmmakers—Theodore Ushev and Chris Landreth—whose films, Gloria Victoria and Subconscious Password respectively, are considered strong Oscar contenders this fall. The spotlight features not only their earlier films, but shorts by other filmmakers that Ushev and Landreth admire.

(Disclosure: The NFB advertises the “Get Animated” festival on Cartoon Brew.)

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