“It took seven days to create the world; it only took one to disrupt its balance,” says the tagline for an award-winning animation by a team of students in France. “Au 8ème Jour,” which translates to “On the 8th Day” in French, uses CG, or computer-generated animation techniques to create a three-dimensional world in a stop-motion style.

A multitude of vibrant animals and landscapes appear sewn from fabric in the film’s otherworldly realm, each tethered to a single piece of yarn that connects it to a kind of central energy force—a vibrant, tightly-wrapped skein in the sky. But when mysteriously dark tendrils of black fiber begin to leech into this idyllic world, families and herds must run for their lives.

What’s causing the change—and what the black threads eventually cause—seems beyond imagining. Yet the fantastical situation is not so distant from something familiar right here at home.

The United Nations now concedes that its Paris Climate Agreement goal—limiting global temperature rise, due to greenhouse gas emissions, to 1.5 degrees Celsius above “pre-industrial” levels—is not possible. The science-backed goal was established in 2015 to limit the harms of rising temperatures around the world. Though set in an imaginary world, “Au 8ème Jour” is a beautiful, stark, and poignant reminder of what’s at stake right here on Earth.

“Au 8ème Jour” was created by a team of 5th-year students at Piktura in Roubaix, France, a school focused on animation, illustration, and video game design. The work of Agathe Sénéchal, Flavie Carin, Elise Debruyne, Alicia Massez, and Théo Duhautois, the film has been selected for more than 250 awards. And it’s won 60, including Best Animated Short at both the Bend Film Festival and Santa Barbara International Film Festival last year.

See more from Piktura on Vimeo, and head to the end of this article to glimpse the meticulous behind-the-scenes digital process.

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Caledonia Curry’s story of the Sibylant Sisters starts like many others in the fairytale genre, although it takes just a few words to realize that something is off: “Once upon a swampy ol’ dirt road, two sisters, Caelum and Terra, were growing up under the care of a spindly little witch by the name of Katarina.” The narrative continues with the sorcerous mother beginning to unravel, prompting the siblings to rely on the younger Caelum’s magical powers to survive.

“This story is drawn from my own childhood growing up at the end of a dirt road with a mother who was in the midst of a psychotic breakdown, and a lifetime spent teasing out the relationship between creativity, intuition, magic, and madness,” the artist says.

Curry, who’s better known as Swoon (previously), has taken a sort of narrative turn in her practice as of late, translating her interest in family and intergenerational trauma into a sprawling, mythical tale. Seven years in the making, the project is multi-disciplinary and spans sculpture, installation, costume, film, and more. Many of the works can be seen in a four-part read-aloud, and they’ve also spawned an 88-card deck called “The Oracle of the Sibylants,” complete with symbolic imagery distinct to the artist’s practice.

Included are renderings common in divination, including stars and smoking cauldrons, along with more idiosyncratic objects like a glowing Skee Ball machine and flailing garden hose. “Suffused with joy and tenderness amidst the hardship, these cards speak the language of fairytale, because there are some truths that can only be told by witches and unicorns, ogres and toads,” Swoon adds.

“The Oracle of the Sibylants” is currently funding on Kickstarter, which features a video glimpsing some of the live-action and animated films to come. Stay up to date with the entire project—which Swoon envisions as a traveling exhibition, films, novella, and theatrical production—on Instagram.

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A delightful centenarian named Madeleine lives in a senior home in Canada. Full of vim and vigor, she spends her days knitting, chatting, and keeping comfortable in her modest rooms. When she befriends Brazilian-Canadian filmmaker Raquel Sancinetti, 67 years her junior, a beautiful relationship develops.

Sancinetti’s short film, “Madeleine,” emerged from the joyful, thoughtful, and tender weekly conversations the unlikely friends had over five years, along with Sancinetti’s desire to take her older companion on a road trip to the sea. Madeleine’s age—103 when the project began—meant her physical exertions were limited, and despite many attempts to convince her, Madeleine preferred to remain at home.

Sancinetti did have one powerful tool at her disposal, though, to organize another kind of trip—via the imagination. “We frequently discussed going on a road trip, so I decided to bring her out in the only way I could: through animation,” Sancinetti wrote in an editorial to accompany the Op-Docs series by The New York Times. “This short documentary was completed when Madeleine was 107 years old, and I consider myself very fortunate to have known her.”

“Madeleine” combines stop-motion animation and live action recordings in a poignant reflection on friendship, aging, and living life to its fullest. Born thousands of miles apart, their connection illustrates how beautiful—and unexpected—relationships can develop at different times of life. Sancinetti captures her friend’s infectious good humor and self-awareness with playfulness that also doesn’t shy away from the realities of one nearing the end of their life.

The short won several prestigious film festival prizes, including Québec Cinéma’s Prix Iris for Best Animated Short Film and the Canadian Screen Awards’ prize for Best Short Documentary, among others. See more on Vimeo.

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Most of us can imagine a time when we felt tethered to something or someone we knew wasn’t right for us. Perhaps a job takes too much energy, a loved one needs care that’s physically and emotionally demanding, or we find ourselves in a situation where we feel stuck and don’t know how to let go. That’s the universally relatable premise of the enigmatic short film “Sisters.”

The short animated film is directed by Andrea Szelesová and produced by Pure Shore Films. It follows the mysterious routine of a young woman. We observe a daily trip to feed and water an unusually large figure that seems to grow bigger every day, half-wedged into the earth amid an expansive meadow.

As time passes, the interaction becomes more exhausting, and it appears the monumental figure’s health is slowly fading. But what emerges in her place is just as beautiful as the tender care that the protagonist provided all along, granted she can appreciate the situation for what it has become.

“What we love about ‘Sisters’ is that everyone can find their own meaning in it,” Pure Shore says in a comment. “Indeed, it is about ‘letting go,’ freeing ourselves from what holds us back, whatever that may be.”

See the full film on Vimeo.

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Say you visit a highly anticipated exhibition one Saturday afternoon and find yourself in a crowded gallery, shoulder-to-shoulder with a pack of rabid art goers. As you stealthily maneuver toward your viewing target, an over-stimulated (or, depending on the show, perhaps under-stimulated) child begins to melt down. You suddenly overhear an unreasonably heated conversation about brunch plans. Your heartbeat quickens, and soon, art gallery panic sets in. How do you return to the piece in front of you while also reclaiming your peace of mind?

A collaborative film by animator Gaia Alari and therapist Emily Price visualizes how art can help us get in tune with our senses and emotions. Paired with Alari’s dynamic drawings, Price guides viewers through an exercise designed to focus our attention even in the most anxious or gloomy of situations. Put your hands on your heart and stomach, she suggests, or imagine yourself protected in a cloche or invisibility cape, allowing yourself to feel calm and safe.

“How does your body react to art?” is produced by MoMA, which also released a long-form interview with Price that dives into the psychology of a museum visit. For more from Alari, visit Vimeo.

You also might enjoy a similarly meditative project by Bryana Bibbs, which invites viewers to contribute to a collective weaving as a response to an exhibition about mental health and wellness.

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Known for their innovative music videos and dance-worthy tracks, OK Go knows the power of great visuals. Coordination is often the name of the game, from the viral treadmills in “Here It Goes Again” to 64 synced and choreographed smartphones in “A Stone Only Rolls Downhill.” For their latest release, “Impulse Purchase,” the group turned to another means of collaboration: open-source animation.

OK Go teamed up with animators Lucas Zanotto (previously) and Will Anderson, along with Blender Studio, to create a digital music video unlike any they’ve made so far. The song “Impulse Purchase” takes Zanotto’s characteristic cartoonish characters, which roll and explode in a variety of playful, geometric shapes and combines the imagery with real-time motion captures of lead singer Damien Kulash’s face.

The video opens with a hint of the process behind the scenes, and the credits reveal even more insights into how the software captured the movements of all the band members.

Blender is an open-source software that enables dynamic 3D modeling and animation, instrumental in the recent Academy Award-winning film Flow. Zanotto and Anderson used a tool called Geometry Nodes, “a node-based way of creating complex geometry that can change dynamically, involve simulations, and ultimately drive a performance in an adaptive way,” Anderson told It’s Nice That. In the spirit of the application used to build it, the music video itself is open-source, allowing viewers to download the source files and tinker around with it.

Move around to more tunes on OK Go’s website and YouTube.

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In northern climes, winter sometimes feels like it drags on forever. A new animation directed by Mitchell Keys taps into the feeling of elation and brightness that accompanies the first days of spring. And while his short film, “Springrise,” is only about a minute long, it traces the sun’s journey higher into the sky, as if awakening from hibernation while people rejoice.

Hothouse, an apprenticeship program facilitated by the National Film Board of Canada, invites a handful of participants to create ultra-short animated shorts every year. It aims to quickly and flexibly make animations while emphasizing creative and technical excellence, and 2025 marks its 15th edition. You can watch all of this year’s projects, plus dozens more from past cohorts, on the NFB website.

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Imagine being about seven years old when you suddenly begin to see images from your past as if they were happening now. What if that’s all you could see? In “Slow Light,” a short film by Warsaw-based animation studio Kijek/Adamski, we trace the memories—and visions—of a man whose eyeballs are so dense that it takes seven years for light to pass through them. By the time he sees people and objects right in front of him, the past is perceived in real time and deeply influences how he experiences the present.

Produced by Animoon and COLA Animation, the film was created by a team of artists and animators who handmade tiny sets and design elements out of colorful paper and paint. You can even check out a short making-of video that illustrates some of the techniques the team used. See more on Vimeo and the studio’s website.

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For his latest single, “Soft Gradient Beckons,” British electronic musician Ryan Lee West, a.k.a. Rival Consoles, tapped multidisciplinary artist Anthony Dickenson to create a music video that plays with a sense of perception and reality—especially the distinction between analog and digital processes.

Dickenson employs a range of photography and film processes in his practice, focusing predominantly on nature and portraiture. For the “Soft Gradient Beckons” music video, he dove headlong into a nine-month experimental process, creating multiple, long paper scrolls with hand-painted frames in black ink. He then animated these by documenting in a sequence akin to the way film is fed through a projector.

The video above features the complete music video, followed by a revealing making-of segment that delves into Dickenson’s labor-intensive process.

His installation “reflects the intricacies and dedication of the creative process,” the artist says in a statement. “The result is both a visual and emotional journey, seamlessly blending art and music into one cohesive experience.” Using cameras attached to a drone and a skateboard, he captures distinct details and patterns while also panning out to see the entire grouping arranged carefully on a warehouse floor.

The concept originated from what Dickenson calls a “mistake” that occurred when, a few years back, he was experimenting with making monoprints using ink rollers. He had a realization that little blemishes or so-called defects various textures from the roller actually lent themselves well to animation.

“Sometimes the mistakes are the bits that really reveal new techniques,” Dickenson says. “I love these little moments of imperfection. Otherwise, you know, you might as well just build in AI.” Find more on his website.

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For those of us who have regularly traveled through airports, the process of checking in—and checking bags—always seems undergirded by latent anxiety. What if a suitcase gets routed onto the wrong plane or never arrives? What if it falls open or gets searched? For filmmaker Lucy Davidson, it’s not so much about the luggage as it is about what we stuff inside.

As a recent student of Aardman Academy, which is operated by its Academy Award-winning namesake animation studio, Davidson tapped into not only the universal experiences of travel but a playful exploration of the multiple meanings of “baggage.” In her stop-animation short, aptly titled “Baggage,” we follow a trio of women, who are incidentally also suitcases, heading on a trip.

Davidson’s charming black-and-white narrative leads us on a brief yet powerful voyage through human emotions, especially the spectrum of feelings we associate with self-confidence, past experiences, and relationships. “Three girlfriends check in their baggage at the airport, but one is carrying a little more than the others,” the film’s tagline goes. “As they travel along the conveyor belt to security, can she hide what’s inside?”

This year, Davidson’s animation was an official selection at the SXSW Film & TV Festival and a finalist at the Sydney Film Festival. See more on the film’s website, and discover more of the filmmaker’s work on her site, Vimeo, and Instagram.

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