Vítor and Gustavo decided in January 2020 to be in a long distance relationship. The idea was to meet again every few months. Until COVID stopped them. This is the story of how they overcame the distance and the time through so much love and, mainly, Whatsapp voice messages.

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Gustavo de Almeida and Vítor Teixeira are directors and producers graduated from Universidade Federal Fluminense. Along with Liara Belmira directed the music video for Café Forte (2017), from Gragoatá.
Gustavo has worked in the production of short movies such as A Casa de Ana (2017), Carne de Porco (2018) and Minha Amada Virginia (2020), and has written the short movie 179X, selected to script labs from the film festivals Visões Periféricas and Metrô.
Vítor has directed the short movie Flag (2017) and the music video e Bloco da Alegria (2019), from Gragoatá, and is the creator of the tv series project Seabra, selected for the Usina do Drama lab e semifinalist of Festival ROTA screenwriting contest.

It's a story of a woman who is haunted by the nightmare of her childhood and her own destiny- the destiny of becoming the next village circumciser. When she is asked to take up the job and circumcise her own daughter, she realizes she can't abide by the traditions and customs of her community, she must fight back.

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Subarna, an animation filmmaker, grew up in Kolkata, and joined the Multimedia course of St. Xavier’s College Kolkata for her love of art. She then graduated and joined the Animation Cinema department of a film school, Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute to pursue her dreams of becoming an Animation Filmmaker further. “Amayi” was finished in 2021 as a part of her short film project in film school.

There once was a man feeling sad and in pain, so to get some attention, he hijacks a plane!
But seizing an aircraft is quite the chore, so he guzzles a beer. And another. Then a few more.
What happened next might seem unbelievable to you, but make no mistake; This story’s quite true.

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Sondre Johre and Joachim Berg are a director duo from completely different backgrounds. Sondre is young, technically gifted and with a love for 3D animation. Joachim is an old soul, raised on 2D, with art education in traditional drawing from Florence, Italy. They both studied animation together at Volda University College 2017-2020.

A short animated document which humorously depicts how cuckoos lay eggs into nests of other birds.

At the age of four, Lisa lost all her hair to alopecia. In an effort to protect Lisa, Mom cuts her hair and makes wigs out of it. Growing up, Lisa tries to escape from the world of her mother's hair, which has become too tight.

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Alexey Evstigneev was born and grew up in Shatura, Russia. He has been studying Documentary Filmmaking at Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (also known as VGIK), course of Viktor Lisakovich, and Alexey Geleyn.
His student film The Track premiered at Dok Leipzig in 2019, the festival circle of the next documentary The Golden Buttons was launched on Visions du Reel in 2020. The Golden Buttons were long-listed for the 2020 European Film Award. Mom's Hair is a graduate film by Alex.

An animated documentary in the form of a travel journal. A girl while being in love with a Palestinian boy goes to Israel for the first time. Her simplified vision of the world and a desire to take sides in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is quickly confronted with the reality of living on the border of Sderot and the Gaza Strip.

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Weronika Szyma, born 1996 in Warsaw. Student of animation at the Film School in Łódź. The scope of her work includes animation, music and DJ-ing. In her artistic practice, she refers to corporeality, interculturality and linguistics.

The protagonist of the animated film is Edie Sedgwick, a model, actress, and star of Andy Warhol's films. The film, however, is not about her relationship with Warhol, but the relationship with her toxic father. Her difficult childhood has cast a shadow on her adult life, soaked with alcohol and filled with drugs. The protagonists are depicted in silhouettes, resembling paper cut-outs or puppets from a shadow theatre. Their character traits are embodied by animal motifs, to achieve a universal story rather than a specific story; whether or not you are famous, sometimes it is too late to reverse fate. "Too Late” - is a tribute to the “Queen of the Underground” for the 50th anniversary of her death. The soundtrack of the film was produced by Robert Margouleff, who was Edie’s friend, a co-producer of “Ciao! Manhattan” (her final film before her death at age 28) and a Grammy Award winner for his work with Stevie Wonder.

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Kinga Syrek was born in 1995 in Krakow. At present, she is a PhD student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. In 2019 she received a Diamond Grant of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage to fund her study ‘Immersion in animation. Virtual reality as a new tool in the animated film which enables the viewer to identify with the protagonist in the script and feel the protagonist’s emotions’ and the scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for her artistic achievement. "Too Late" is her directing debut.

The plot of the film is based on a story told by my grandfather. The Germans, having shot all the chickens in the village and they hunt for the last little hen. Little hen, very cunning and agile. Every time the Germans try to catch her, she manages to fool them. Most of all, the little hen likes to hide under a large tractor van. This secure large shelter becomes a real fortress for her.

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Daria Sidlovskaia was born in a small province in Russia. In 2020 she graduated from the branch of VGIK in Rostov-on-Don.

The main character in Ashes is Danuta. She is the narrator as well as grandmother of the director. Danuta is traveling in time to tell her life story. It is a sentimental voyage back to moments spent with the love of her life - Edward. „Because of these letters i feel like I’m falling in love with him all over again...“ – Danuta says in the film and it very much describes the story.The letters from her husband are bringing Danuta back to the feelings she once had for Edward and helps her to, in a way, get closer to him even though he has been dead for a long time. She is revisiting places and reliving her youth. Their life together after World War II in a Communistic Poland was far from easy, but Danuta is always trying to see the positive things in life. The memory is captured in objects from Danutas and Edwards life that the creator is using to show the story. 

The technique that is used in “Ashes” is coherent with the nostalgic love story. The black and white look that was created is very much inspired by Man Rays photographies and his own technique called Rayograph.

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Joanna Dudek (born in Lublin, Poland in 1994) – she graduated art school in Lublin and later she studied graphic design at the University of Marie Curie – Skłodowska in Lublin. She is currently studying animation at the Lodz Film School where she makes her own films and works on other film projects. In her films she’s using different techniques from classic puppet animation, through drawing too experimental animation. She is also making posters, drawings and scenography.

The idea for this film comes from the encounter with two African boys who live in Rome and is based on their music. Tunisian Afif and Senegalese Aliou tell their different stories, talk about friendship, immigration, freedom and above all, about the fundamental value of making music together.

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Elisabetta Bosco was born in Asti (Italy) in 1997 and she graduated in Fine Arts from High School in 2016. She started animation studies in 2017 at ”Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia”, the National School of Cinema in Turin. She graduated in 2020 with the animated documentary "En Rang Par Deux" co-directed with Viola Mancini and Margherita Giusti. After this path she did an internship with Showlab production company at the "Studio Ibrido" and then she took part inthe artistic residence "ARgentiera in AR" where she developed work in augmented reality. She’s currently based in Turin working as a freelance and she has started a new course of study in intercultural communication in order to combine her cultural and artistic background to work on social issues through the language of animation.

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Margherita Giusti was born in Rome in 1991. After high school, she attended a directing course in Rome, where she made a stereoscopic 3D short film, “Beato chi riceve la grazia” and 5 very short
documentaries about the suburbs of Rome. From 2011 to 2017, she worked as director’s assistant and storyboard artist for tv series and films. Then she decided to move to Turin to study animation in Centro
Sperimentale di Cinematografia where she got her diploma in 2020 after
making her graduation film “En Rang Par Deux”, an animated documentary, co-directed with Elisabetta Bosco and Viola Mancini. She
went back to Rome right before the lockdown and during that period she
made “Innatura”, a short film for an art event called SheDevil, that
went to Animateka in the Panorama section and “Body Rock” a music video for the British singer Regulus Red. She’s currently based in
Rome working as a freelance.

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Viola Mancini, from Serra de’ Conti (Marche), graduated in Psychological Sciences and Techniques at the University of Bologna in
2016. Then she graduates in 2020 at “Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia” in Turin, Department of Animation with the short film "En rang par deux" an animated documentary co-directed with Margherita Giusti and Elisabetta Bosco awarded at the Animaphix, Imaginaria 2020 and other festivals. She works as a junior 2D animator on Xilam's
series "Lupin's Tales" throughout 2020 in collaboration with Maga
Animation Studio. In 2020 he also founded the collective MUTA Animation with 3 other classmates, including Elisabetta and
Margherita. In 2021, he began freelancing, working with various studios on series projects but continuing to make individual works including music videos and short themes for festivals.

Fear is an inevitable part of our lives, we all hide big or small dreads in ourselves, with real or imagined origins. People of Budapest were asked about their fears in this docu animation, which shows we are not alone with our fears. If we acknowledge and respect it, we can share a laugh.

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Eszter Kardos was born in 1997 in Veszprém, Hungary. She graduated as a graphic designer at the University of Kaposvár’s Digital Graphic Design BA programme. In 2021, she graduated as an animation designer at Budapest Metropolitan University with her master diploma work called “I’m Not Afraid Anymore”.

An animated documentary about 3 generations of mothers and daughters of a Colombian family, talking about their struggles and overcomings in order to make their children's life better.

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Juliana Erazo is a Colombian animator and illustrator, graduated with an Animation Masters in The Netherlands.
She has been working as a freelance animator for 5 years, and have also been producing and coordinating La Truca International Animation Festival for 4 years.

Shame is a documentary about abuse in catholic schools from the 60s, based on the director's father's experience.

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Paz del Carre, born in Spain in 1999, Paz is a Design and New Technologies student in the city of Valencia. She has also studied for a few months Animation at the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, United Kingdom. There is where she developed and made her first animated short film, a documentary dedicated to her father’s school experience.

The experimental stop motion story of a London boy in World War 2, we witness war drawing inexorably closer as he comes of age. 14 when war begins, our young hero lives through bombings, the evacuation of his siblings, the privations of wartime. Yet he survives and even thrives. He sets out to search for his friend in the East End during those turbulent and frightening times, and with his own voice tells his story with wit and verve few would believe today. Finally, we leave him at the brink on D-Day, a hero already in the making.

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Avy Signofthesharkboy - winner of The Floating Circle Prize by the Royal West of England Academy, Avy is establishing herself as an award winning director, artist and composer. With a background in the alternative 90s rock music scene she graduated from Falmouth University during the 2020 pandemic with a BA in Animation & VFX. Now on course to find success in creative direction, live performance and artwork, the film has won Best Student Treatment Cornwall Festival 2020 and her artwork for the film, presented in a digital 2D narrative of the story, won the national RWA Student Prize 2020-2021.

What it is like to be a girl in a boys world. Six girls share their own experiences playing woman’s football in a male-dominated sport. Their stories are translated by different animation techniques to explore various narrative possibilities.

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Paola Sorrentino is a young animator and illustrator from Puglia, Italy. She graduated in illustration at the ISIA of Urbino and spent a year at ENSAD in Paris studying animation. She love working with pens, ink, painting, oil pastels, or in general objects that dirty her hands, clothes and everyone around her. She have a computer with which often fight with but always make peace in the  end.

Model, singer, writer and painter Alice Prin, known as Kiki, also took part in this
artist group, which has bohemian lives and has radically changed the understanding of art. With her charismatic and strong character in the art environment of that period,
she became the muse of dozens of painters, writers, photographers and directors and supported their productions. Despite the difficulties of being a woman, Kiki has managed to stand upright on her own feet and become the face of avant-garde art.
This stop motion animation is inspired by Alice Prin’s
memoir book "Kiki's Memoirs".

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Zanna Abasova, born in 1993, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan Zanna Abasova earned her bachelor of Stage and Costume Design in Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University (2017). During the undergraduate period, she focused on the production of stop motion animation short films by focusing on the Puppetry design branch among the branches of Decor, Costume and Puppetry. Besides the classical and traditional production of puppetry, she was interested in alternative technologies such as 3D printers. She uses puppetry to reflect her own sense of art and aesthetic values. Zanna Abasova continues her Adequacy of art in the Stage and Costume Design Department of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and is a research assistant at the same university.

A short animated documentary that explores five young male university students’ experiences with mental health issues. The young men open up and share their own issues in the hopes to encourage other men to feel safe doing the same.

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India is a young female filmmaker with particular interests in documentary film and production design. She is currently in her third year of the film course at Westminster University.

"New toys" narrates the testimony of a woman forcibly recruited by the Colombian guerrilla FARC EP, the animation shows a tale of survival, the challenges of being a woman in a war and how the worst part of armed struggles usually falls on the most innocent.

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Antonia Bello is a student of Visual Arts and Social Communication at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. She has focused her work on experimental animation and its fusions with the plastic arts, installation, as well as sound exploration. The themes of her works range from personal inquiries, relations between the body and video, and plastic matter as a protagonist in non-conventional narratives. She has participated in university film festivals such as the " Festival Universitario de cine y audiovisuales Equinoxio " and the "Cine Toro experimental film festival". 

Based on the research and records of the three conditions of Congenital Insensitivity to Pain, Chondropathy, Marfan syndrome, I made these three personal documentary animations. "tatata" not only represent the three of them but also represent all of us who are neglected and need to establish emotional connections around us. I try to use the body as a common medium for establishing empathy, to achieve the transformation from perceptual empathy to personal cognitive empathy. I made sculptures for each animated character to reproduce the physical form of the three types of diseased characters. At the same time, the animation is visually expressed in a projected manner.

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YiYang Sun. Born in 2000 from China,study in East China Normal University now major in degital design. Her film has been selected in international film festival such as Animafest Zagreb,New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival and Animist Tallin festival.