Top Story: Toho Acquires North American Animation Distributor GKIDS

Slamdance, the younger and more indie counterpart to Sundance, has announced the animation selections for their 22nd edition, taking place from January 22-28 in Park City, Utah.

Fourteen shorts were selected for the main animation competition and a couple other shorts snuck in through other categories. Slamdance generally favors hand-made approaches over CG, and personal animated films over big group productions. The Experimental MFA program at CalArts made a strong showing this year with four films in competition.

Check out all the animated shorts at Slamdance 2016:

Animated Shorts Program
  • Bottom Feeders
    Director & Screenwriter: Matt Reynolds (USA)
    Two fictional species try to make it through the day in this bleak parody of the natural world.
  • Flaws
    Director: Josh Shaffner (USA)
    An autobiographical, surreal rant about years spent in the service industry.flaws_joshshaffner
  • Heila Ormur
    Director: Rose Stark (Iceland, USA)
    The slow savoring of horrible flavors in the body of a love gone bad.
  • Here There
    Director & Screenwriter: Alexander Stewart (Croatia, USA) US Premiere
    A graphic form to memory’s malleable, straying lines.
  • Lazy Daze
    Director: Brian Smee (USA) World Premiere
    Dog in the land where the good life takes you.lazydaze_still
  • Leftover
    Directors & Screenwriters: Tibor Banoczki, Sarolta Szabo (France) US Premiere
    Remains of food, remains of human relationships.
  • Life is Rugged
    Director & Screenwriter: Simon Schnellmann (Germany)
    Five short sequences of line-drawing life are linked together by a black point.lifeisrugged
  • Mirror in Mind
    Director: SeungHee Kim (South Korea)
    A woman looks into her mind, chasing her ideals on a tightrope.
  • My Dad
    Director: Marcus Armitage (UK) US Premiere
    A boy’s vividly-colored memories of learning everything from his dad, including racially-motivated violence.
  • Pangs
    Director: Wendy Cong Zhao (USA) World Premiere
    Wading through bodily and emotional pangs.pangs_wendyzhao
  • The Past Inside the Present
    Director & Screenwriter: James Siewert (USA) World Premiere
    An allegorical tale of a couple who attempt to renew their dying relationship by plugging directly into recordings of their memories.pastinsidethepresent_still
  • Ripple
    Director: Conner Griffith (USA) North American Premiere
    The shapes we make. An advertisement for planet earth.ripple_connergriffith
  • Still Life
    Director: Kevin Eskew (USA) North American Premiere
    Et tu doggy? Synchronicity strikes in the suburban Midwest.
  • Worm
    Director: Becky James (USA) North American Premiere
    Wrapped in chains, a worm languishes in prison.worms_beckyjames

The following animated short is in the Anarchy Shorts program:

  • Double-Blind No.1
    Director: The Double-Blind Experiments (Australia)
    Five VFX artists set out to test the theory that a fine-art technique relying on chance could be applied to a motion piece.

And this animated film appears in the Documentary Shorts:

  • Stems
    Director & Screenwriter: Ainslie Henderson (UK) US Premiere
    For a brief moment, stop motion puppets crafted from found objects make beautiful music and then as quickly as they came to life, return to being inanimate objects.