Sacha gallops around Florida and gets his heart crushed by an older female. Harleigh Shaw directs “The Day that Sherrie Stopped,” a 3D animated film that’s both dreamy and somber, its surreal visual landscapes filled with color and youthful energy. After getting popsicles in the park with his fri...

While making an animated film, a filmmaker must decide whether to stop working with his assistant or stop sleeping with her. “Brontosaurus,” directed, animated, and voiced by Jack Dunphy, is a brutally honest and darkly funny portrait of a messy relationship, presented as a series of pencil drawi...

Though the big city may appear to be endless concrete and steel, it is teeming with hidden life underneath. So proposes the new film by Luke Strickler, “Scenes From the City,” an absurdist 3D animation that illustrates the behavior and thoughts of a series of sentient buildings, stop signs, and t...

In a trash-filled city, a homeless woman's encounter with a fish takes an unexpected turn. Elly Stern directs “Waste Away,” a beautifully designed and executed stop-motion animated film, an allegory of motherhood in various forms, and a depiction of the overabundance, wastefulness and decay of mo...

The Itching is a short horror film about two girlfriends whose cozy social life turns ugly when one of them contracts a mysterious illness. Beginning with a tiny itch, she rips a ragged hole in her own leg, a pooling landscape in which some terrible urge is reflected. I won’t reveal any more of t...

Two gay men struggle with depression in a ruined environment, and a botanical glassblower mourns his wife. “Flora Borealis,” directed by Casey Friedman, is a striking animated film that uses a post-apocalyptic setting to explore themes of destruction and perseverance. The young couple survives in...

A surreal, scattershot story of fatherhood, the cycle of life, consumerism, and giving people what they ask for. “Bobby Fish,” directed by Peter Wagner, is a one-of-a-kind oddity bouncing between perspectives— from a father, to a son, to a fish, to an evil toy company — all held together with a u...

In this striking avant-garde animation by Cassie Shao, we begin in a room where a group of four people sit around a table and reflect on the question, “who did it?” Focusing on the sensory and dreamlike, the film offers free-flowing vignettes that resist easy comprehension. Through its abstract ...

A colorful animated tale of a one-eyed woman and the guilt she feels after destroying her home planet. “Starshine Mountain,” directed by Corrinne James, is a wonderfully imaginative fairy tale / creation myth that begins with a cataclysmic series of events. Odette is a scientist on Earth who one ...

In 1968, a young flight attendant bought 900 lbs of marijuana in Jamaica and tried to smuggle it out. Directed by Matthew Salton.

In the future, a data limit is reached causing the internet to spill out into the real world. Luke Strickler directs and animates “2064,” an absurdist art video using stock 3D models of common American products and brands to paint a ridiculous future. A giant floating Mario becomes the Earth’s ne...

The sequel to Luke Strickler's "2064" imagines a future where our dying brains are uploaded to an online infinity full of big horses, hot gods, and french Pikachus. “2064: Cloud 9.2,” uses a cheap print-out aesthetic to continue exploring an absurd future with mind-expanding projections. In“2064,...

During the Covid-19 pandemic, a mother returns her son’s missed phone call. “It’s Your Mother Calling,” directed by NoBudge favorite Travis Wood, is a touching animated micro-short that uses a real voicemail message over a series of colorful visuals. It’s a portrait of longing and motherly advice...