Richard, a sparrow adopted by a stork family, is wintering at the Great Lake in Northern Africa. When he realises that he won’t be the one to lead his flock back North, Richard decides to travel on his own and crosses paths with Samia and her sparrow flock, who are being held captive by evil marabous under the control of greedy peacock Zamano. The only chance of freedom for the sparrows is to solve a riddle and find the Great Jewel, which will call upon teamwork, trust and most of all- spork (sparrow + stork) skills.

Butty is the clumsy household robot of a family and tries to do his best every day. When he blows up the oven and destroys the lasagne, he ruins daughter Ally's long-awaited birthday party. Her mother is furious and tells him to fix it, but he only makes things worse. The mother tells him to go away. Butty is so ashamed that he leaves his family.

When a crown rolled in front of his hooves, Louis, a sheep among other sheep, grabs it, puts it on and becomes king. From then on, he plays through everything that kings do to banish boredom and to demonstrate power. With a lot of humour, historical borrowings and a profound sense, the detailed stop-motion animation drives abuse of power to extremes in order to expose it.

The story of how Aurora Mardiganian (1901-94), a survivor of the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire (1915-17), became a Hollywood silent film star.

The second essay about still dominant dark aspects of our modern society. It is conceived as a surreal anti-patriarchal thought experiment and raises important questions about gender, power, and social change, prompting us to reflect on how historical patterns of discrimination and oppression might be either repeated or overcome in a reversed gendered world. It challenges the viewer to confront their own assumptions and biases, and to consider the possibilities of a more equitable society.

Faced with a crumbling relationship and writer's block, Miffi turns to an AI writing tool that connects to her thoughts and extracts content. She regains that missing spark, but sparks also singe.

Rainer Kohlberger is prepared to go far when it comes to the physical experiences he evokes with his work. Answering the Sun demands the utmost from its audience. The invitation is to squint our eyes and allow the most amazing trips to unfold – just like when we were children letting the sun come in. However, the work is simultaneously a 60-minute bombardment of coloured fields and a wall of sound, followed by a hallucinatory, silent inky-black sequence.

The documentary Hölderlin's Echo approaches the life and work of the well-known poet in an unusual way: In the real film parts, artists are observed and interviewed who interpret the numerous settings of Hölderlin's poems by well-known composers. Animated sequences interpret biographical sections of Hölderlin's moving life in poetic associative form. In the combination of both art forms, a complete work is created that consciously moves away from more conventional forms of geographical chronology and thus also tries to do justice to associative poetry.

Amany Al-Ali stands out as one of Syria's few female cartoonists, residing in her father's home in Idlib, the last city unconquered by Assad's forces. Like her remaining neighbours she's submitted to relentless Russian airstrikes and caught between advancing troops and extremist groups. Despite acclaim for her art, she faces threats, condemnation, and degradation, causing her to contemplate leaving. Ironically, her artwork has graced galleries in France and Italy but never received exposure within Syria's borders. The film captures her endeavor to organize her inaugural exhibition in Idlib. This experience compels her to confront the harsh realities of a city defined by bombings and male interference. While organizing drawing lessons for women and girls, comforting her young niece, and sharing her story with the documentary crew, Amany's outlook on the future gradually erodes.

Loriot, whose real name was Bernhard-Viktor Christoph-Carl von Bülow, or Vicco von Bülow for short (1923-2011), is considered to have been the greatest and most versatile German comedian of the twentieth century. From 1976 to 1978, Radio Bremen commissioned his six-part television series “Loriot”, in which live action skits alternated with short animated sketches. The series is believed to be the highpoint of Loriot’s television work and was to establish his cult status; it has long been an integral part of German cultural heritage.

The remarkable story of Dr. Mohamed Helmy, the Muslim Egyptian doctor who became the only Arab recognized by Israel as a ‘Righteous Among the Nations.’ A proud humanist who freely criticized the Nazi regime, Helmy risked his life to save Anna Boros, a Jewish girl he knew, by dressing her in a hijab and pretending she was his niece. Shot on location in Berlin, the film incorporates rare photographs and archival footage of Berlin in the 1930s and ‘40s.

A dark comedy that follows the adventures of the protagonist, a gay man in a long-term relationship whose life takes an unexpected turn when he falls in love with a mysterious neon blue cracked egg.

What do we burn when our world is already on fire? A woman running from a terrible relationship finds herself eye to eye with a chicken. They share a moment, a cigarette and a desire to burn down everything around them to soothe their respective wounds. A painted flight of fancy about the elation that comes with breaking out of a cycle of pain.

Dodo's father is a big blue bird. One day he flies out of the window and doesn't come back. From that day onwards Dodo stops growing up.

Megalomania in the jungle. Two monkeys want more. Lust for the largest coconut drives them higher and higher up into the tree.

The story of a little girl who wakes up on February 24th because of the air alert, and tries to find someone living in the burning city. The main character is based on the story of Alisa, a 4-year-old girl, who stayed in the besieged Mariupol during the whole time; she was also at the Azovstal plant during the last month of its defense. When the Russians allowed the civilians to evacuate from Azovstal, Alisa was separated from her mother.

In this hand-painted and drawn animation, a lonely old man fishes his dreams from the moon's reflection. Looking inside them, he faces surreal and devastating nightmares until a spiritual discovery frees him from all illusions.

This Japanese urban legend is quite different from typical German fairy-tales. In addition to classic themes like betrayal and revenge, the legend of the “slit-mouthed woman” also includes supernatural elements.

La Familia's pasta mafia gathers to discuss the horrible crime done to parmesan, which one of them is guilty for.

It is an charming story about the little fan who is on a quest. But where it is most beautiful, unexpected things happen.

Based on their experiences living and working amongst Soviet-era concrete, panel-block apartments, the filmmaker, together with five visual artists, examine past and present attitudes towards their former homes. Combining touching, personal stories with experimental research on the history of twentieth-century art and architecture, the film creates both a compelling narrative, and a contemporary aesthetic of panel-block mass housing using original watercolors, put into motion using digital animation and stop-motion techniques. As global and personal histories interweave, the film explores notions of moral and political responsibility as evinced in physical space.

Medieval time travelers on a flying visit to the future, the so-called present, and the not-so-distant past encounter burgers, SUVs, esotericists, and a mammoth, and then (spoiler alert) return to the past.

In a run-down motel, a secret club gets together. They are robots who, from time to time, meet to fulfill their dream of being something else. Tonight is a special night. For one of them, it's a farewell party.

The hammerhead shark wants to dance at the shark party but his dancing is hammer hard and wild.

The polar bear and the brown bear are playing hide and seek in the snow.

In high-contrast images reduced to black, white, and red and with expressive illustrations and computer-generated 3D sculptures, Sasha Svirsky formulates his outcry against the war in Ukraine, thus giving a voice to the many Russians who oppose it. He portrays Peter the Great (1672–1725), the first emperor of the Russian Empire, as a ruthless man of power who has lost all respect for human life.

A biologist describes her research into various species of frogs in the rainforest of Central America and their mysterious disappearance as if it were a criminal case. Brilliantly animated drawings accompany her vivid scientific analysis.

The squirrel mother is busy gathering her nuts, so she doesn't have any time to look after her kids.

T-Rex wants to play basketball, but his large body and short arms don’t make it easy. At first, he’s the laughing stock of the nimble monkeys, but when they accept T-rex for who he is, they discover his real talents.

Two wanderers come across a hypnotic water pit in a dry desert. The water pit is now the trigger for an all-encompassing conflict: should they settle down or keep on wandering?

The cat has an especially delicious recipe: Mouse Soup.

The film “Outside” tells the story of domestic violence happening every day behind closed doors. Our heroine deals with violence in her own way. The film was inspired by an article about this in a German newspaper, titled "The Numbers Are Scary".

Official festival animation and key visuals for the 30th edition of Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film (ITFS)

In a sterile white examination room, a young woman is asked by a doctor to undress completely. An exhaustive examination of the protagonist’s skin begins during which every centimetre, the palm of her hand, the sole of her foot, the back and also the genital area are closely scrutinised. The doctor meticulously probes every nook and cranny of the young woman’s outer shell until she is able to identify a suspicious birthmark. A timely appointment to remove the mole is made.

Shot entirely from an apartment on the 36th floor of a high-rise building, the images in this experimental stereoscopic animation survey large parts of Hong Kong's cityscape.

A Lars Nagler short film.

Lilli + Camille is about the loss of a loved one and the healing effect of the world of plants - a space in which memory and vitality exist at the same time.

War is a terrible crime, that cannot bring anything good. In a quiet way reality is told.

An animated music video parody of the beloved song “Good Morning Baltimore” from the musical “Hairspray.” The video stars the fabulous Drag Queen and sensation, Sherry Vine. In this hilarious and vibrant music video, Sherry Vine takes center stage to celebrate sex positivity and empowerment with a humorous twist, while meeting up with other glamorous Drag Queens, including some familiar faces from the RuPaul’s Drag Race franchise.

Female ejaculation in a (animated) nutshell.

Kicked out on his 21st birthday and troubled by his inner demons, Melvin thinks of ending things. But right on the edge of a cliff he finds ‘The Last Bar’, a quirky place of misfits that came for all the same reasons. Sparked by talks and confrontation, his inner journey continues and he has to stand up for himself. At break of dawn, his thoughts of ending his life vanished and he decides to stay a little longer.

Welcome to St. Mickeyland! In painting-like tableaus, a reservation inhabited by cartoon and media icons is displayed. The assembled characters are in search of meaning in life, reflecting on their creation in the honeypot of capital. While Snow White learns stand-up paddling, Winnie-the-Poo gives birth to a descendant, adding a dash of humanity to the ficitonal shell.

In this remarkably tactile animation, Alisi Telengut reimagines the formation of a sacred lake in Siberia and draws connections between an endangered Indigenous language and matters of history, ecology, and humanity.

A creature in space overexploits its own planet with existential consequences: as it sinks into plastic waste, it realises that the planet's resources are finite.

The dark guardian Nyghil awakens, guided by a dark indescribable power. Ordered by a dark force to deliver a cosmic god, he begins his journey in the deepest ruins of the exoplanet Xebreth.

After the Industrial Revolution, the division of labour became clearer. Many people have to work in one position for a long time. Unfortunately, not everyone is satisfied with their work. Did primitive people have similar problems as workers in modern society? We interviewed five of them, let’s see what they said.

A minimalist optical sound meditation on simplicity and repetition building complex arrangements of audio-visual oneness, where the most basic geometric shapes draw intricate visual and sonic patterns.

“The woman is the man's servant”, she grew up with this sentence from her father, Lenia Friedrich's great-grandfather. How much has this way of thinking changed from today, where can you still discover parallels? Her hands testify to her hard work as a housewife, for which she certainly rarely received recognition. Of course, there was never any monetary reward for this, the father was the breadwinner of the family, although she did the reproductive work in silence. Especially the quiet work in the background, which makes it possible to maintain the entire society, Lenia Friedrich would like to put in the foreground.

Taking inspiration from 20th-century avant-garde experiments in graphical sound generation, the entire image in O/S functions as an optical soundtrack. Abstract motion becomes sound.

A king and queen have everything they could possibly want — love, castles, horses, gardens, pets ... but something is missing.

Mouse doesn't have any idea what treasure awaits him when he stumbles across an abandoned box on Monday morning. It is then Croc who makes it his own. Then there are Moggy, Dachshund, Frog, Snail and Porker who get possession of it as well - only to find that the box cannot be possessed, or at least not in the way they thought.

Juliane Ebner reflects on her childhood in Stralsund, at a time when the city was still part of the GDR.

The Rubbings of Trajectories is an intimate documentation about space and memory. Drawing inspiration from travelling around the globe, the film invites the viewers to slip into a person’s consciousness and experience the relationship between one’s inner and outer worlds.

A resident is challenged by demons from another realm in his closet.