Aug 22nd (Sat) 12:15～ @JMS ASTER PLAZA Medium Hall
Program Overview
Prior to HAS2026, the festival conducted a survey titled 120 Years of Short Animation (1906–2026), inviting animation filmmakers and professionals working across the Pan-Pacific and Asia to select their twelve favorite short animated films from the history of animation. This program presents a selection of international works that emerged from those responses as particularly influential on today's short animation creators. Through these films, audiences can trace some of the artistic roots and inspirations that continue to shape contemporary animation practice. (Curator: Nobuaki Doi)
After witnessing the accidental death of a stranger, Ruby seeks affirmation in the city around her, and finds it in surprising places. With deft humour and finely rendered detail, When the Day Breaks illuminates the links which connect our urban lives, while evoking the promise and fragility of a new day. Co-directors Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis use pencil and paint on photocopies to achieve a textured look suggestive of a lithograph or a flickering newsreel. In When the Day Breaks, the ordinary--a lemon, a toaster, a chance collision on a street corner--is endowed with a visceral power. A film without words.
Wendy Tilby
Wendy Tilby’s first film, Strings (1991), won many international awards, in addition to being nominated for an Academy Award®. For her next film, Tilby joined forces with Amanda Forbis to direct When the Day Breaks (1999), which received the Short Film Palme d’Or at Cannes, an Academy Award® nomination and the Grand Prix at the Annecy, Zagreb and Hiroshima international animation festivals. In 2011, they followed up with Wild Life, which garnered a number of prizes and was also nominated for an Academy Award®. The duo recently completed their third NFB short, The Flying Sailor (2022).
Amanda Forbis
Amanda Forbis joined the National Film Board of Canada in 1990 as animation director on an educational film titled The Reluctant Deckhand. In 1995, Wendy Tilby invited her to Montreal to co-direct When the Day Breaks (1999). It received numerous honours, including the Short Film Palme d’Or at Cannes, an Academy Award® nomination and the Grand Prix at the Annecy, Zagreb and Hiroshima international animation festivals. In 2011, they followed up with Wild Life, which garnered a number of prizes and was also nominated for an Academy Award®. The duo has recently completed their third NFB short, The Flying Sailor (2022).
An animator, Don Hertzfeldt, receives a commission from a television network to create a series of commercials. But the finished works prove to be so bizarre and extreme that every one of them is rejected for broadcast. Presented as a fictional compilation of these “never-aired” advertisements, Rejected begins as a humorous parody of commercial media before spiraling into an increasingly chaotic and surreal vision in which the very logic of animation begins to collapse. Combining sharp satire of commercial culture with Hertzfeldt’s unmistakably original style, the film has become one of the defining masterpieces of contemporary short animation.
Don Hertzfeldt
Director Don Hertzfeldt is a two-time Academy Award nominee whose animated films include "It's Such a Beautiful Day", the "World of Tomorrow" series, "ME", "The Meaning of Life", "On Memory", "Billy's Balloon", and "Rejected". His work has played around the world, received hundreds of awards, and in 2014 made a special appearance on "The Simpsons".
Milch
Igor Kovalyov
Russia,USA
2005
15:17
We are in a small quiet town, supposedly somewhere in Europe. It is the kind of place with light traffic and cozy houses.
There is a family on the balcony; Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, Dad and the Son.
This film will be presented as a snapshot of a day in the life of this one family. One day. A dense day. A tense day. A day that equals life. Framed with a not-so-straightforward narrative, including time lapses and introspection,
Every morning a milk girl come and places a bottle at the door. She exchanges a brief glance with the mother and rushes off. There must be something behind this encounter. A secret?
We will learn, if only by reading between the lines, that the father is secretly involved with this young woman. The son has a secret as well, he dreams about this young woman, with all of the passion and suffering of an eight-year-old boy.
Is this really such a secret though? Not for the elders. They can see through the lies and understand everything. In the end, the mother will also reveal her knowledge. But by this time the Milk Girl has already vanished from the town, having run off with a handsome biker.
In the closing scene, a milk bottle stands on the dinner table. In the windows the rain turns to snow, the day comes to an end, along, perhaps, with someone's life.
The audience focuses on the boy as he discovers love and comes to face the morality of his family. The film speaks if this through a web of oblique details, attempting to capture
the flesh of relations and, perhaps, the very tension of being.
Igor Kovalyov
Igor Kovalyov is the internationally acclaimed filmmaker, designer, animator, and director. His short films Andrei Svislotski, Hen, His wife, Bird in the Window, Flying Nansen and Milch have received numerous awards and accolades throughout the animation and film community.
Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Igor Kovalyov was the co-founder of Moscow's legendary Pilot School of Animation. The studio also housed some of the most brilliant artists in Russia including many of the current Klasky Csupo designers and animators.
In 1991, Kovalyov accepted an invitation to work at Klasky Csupo's studio in Hollywood. In his time there, Kovalyov co-directed Klasky Csupo's first feature film, The Rugrats Movie and has directed the television series, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters as well as episodes of Duckman and Rugrats, commercials and Internet shorts.
Jeu
Georges Schwizgebel
Switzerland
2006
03:20
A visual and musical game which builds and destroys itself on the speed rhythm of Serge Prokofiev’s Scherzo to Piano Concerto No.2
Georges Schwizgebel
The animation director and producer Georges Schwizgebel (1944) has created a remarkably original body of work. His films-whose technical execution is always masterful-are marked by a playful approach to narrative, spectacular formalism and the intermingling of visuals and music. His first film, The Flyght of Icarus (1974) begins a career that currently numbers 22 films, which have gone to win numerous awards at prestigious international festivals (such as Cannes, Berlin, Chicago, Locarno, Hiroshima, Stuttgart and Ottawa. The Ride to the Abyss(1992) is regularly cited as one of the finest animated films of all time. In 2017 Georges Schwizgebel receives the Honorary Cristal of Annecy festival, in 2018 the Swiss film award of Honor, and becomes a member of the Oscar’s academy, in 2019 he was appointed officer of the Order of Arts and Letters (France) and receives the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Zagreb Animafest 2020, and get the Grand Prix in HAS 2022 with Darwin’s Notebook.
Please Say Something
David OReilly
Germany
2008
11:00
A troubled relationship between a cat & mouse.
David OReilly
David OReilly is an Irish animator and filmmaker based in Upstate New York. His short Please Say Something (2009) won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, the first animated work to receive the prize. Its follow-up, The External World (2011), won over forty awards including prizes at Sundance and Venice. In 2012 he became the first guest director in Cartoon Network’s history, directing a special of Adventure Time. He designed the fictional video games in Spike Jonze’s Her, and created the simulation games Mountain (2014) and Everything (2017), which won the Golden Nica at Ars Electronica. His 360° dome film Eye of the Dream (2018–2023) was exhibited at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.
Astigmatismo
Nicolai Troshinsky
Spain
2013
04:01
A boy, having lost his glasses, can only see one thing in focus at a time. His sight gets attracted by the sounds that surround him. He will have to explore a blurry world of unknown places and strange characters.
Nicolai Troshinsky
Born in Moscow in 1985, Nicolai Troshinsky studied illustration in Madrid and later attended intensive courses with Józef Wilkon and Linda Wolfsgruber in Italy. In 2009 he graduated from the french animation filmmaking school “La Poudrière”. Since 2006 he has been working as a freelance illustrator. In 2010 he began developing experimental videogames. His game "Loop Raccord" was selected in numerous festivals and international exhibitions. In 2013 he released his short film "Astigmatismo" which was screened in over a hundred international film festivals such as Sundance, Annecy or Sitges, receiving multiple awards. In 2022 he released the videogame "Card Shark", made in collaboration with the studio "Nerial". In 2023 he began developing live AV shows for electronic music. During all this time he has been giving workshops, lectures and teaching illustration and animation.
Ugly
Nikita Diakur
Germany
2017
11:55
An ugly cat struggles to coexist in a fragmented and broken world, eventually finding a soulmate in a mystical chief. Inspired by the internet story ‘Ugly the Cat’.
Nikita Diakur
Nikita Diakur is a Russian-born film maker based Germany. He studied Animation at the Royal College of Art in London,
where he produced “Fly on the Window” that went on to screen at international film festivals such as Zagreb, Annecy and Edinburgh. Diakur is now making short films influenced by internet stories and animated via the process of computer simulation.
Bloeistraat 11
Nienke Deutz
Netherlands
2018
09:39
Inseparable best friends spend their last summer holiday of childhood amusing themselves around the house. As summer progresses their bodies start to morph and shift and an awkwardness descends on their friendship. Puberty seems determined to interrupt their bond.
Nienke Deutz
Nienke Deutz is a Dutch director and artist currently living and working in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In 2010 she finished her studies of Bachelor in the Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht, before moving to Ghent, Belgium and graduating as Master of Animationfilm at KASK. Her graduation film 1,2,3, piano! was awarded a Wildcard from the Flanders Audiovisual fund and her work has been shown in festivals and musea around Europe.
Acid Rain
Tomek Popakul
Poland
2019
26:21
Somewhere in the Eastern Europe. Young runs away from her depressing hometown. Her early enthusiasm about the hitch-hike falls when she finds herself in the city outskirts in the middle of the night. At the bridge she meets a figure balancing unsafely on the guardrail. That’s how she meets Skinny – a kind of unstable weirdo. Skinny lives in a camping van, which he uses to run his not-so-legal job errands. Together with him, she sets on a journey with no destination. As the ride continues a particular affection grows between the two of them.
Tomek Popakul
Animation director, musician , graphic designer, music video creator, Graduated Lodz Film School on direction animation and special effects.
Paralelly studied there scriptwiritng for 1 year. His graduation movie "Ziegenort" was shown on many international festivals and gained many awards incl. main award fro animated movie on New Horizons festival in Wrocław, award for best animation on Cracow Film Festival, Grand Prix in Oberhausen, and award for best animation on Brooklyn film festival.
He was on of 3 chosen participants for Animation Artist in Residence Tokyo orgnised by Japan Image Council (JAPIC) where he created movie "Black".
His movies were two times selected for festivals in Rotterdam and Sundance Film Festival.
Movie "Acid Rain" so far gained 35 awards, was shown in around 90 festivals, got prestigeous nomiation for Annie Awards, was on long Oscar list.
Popakul has on his account also video work "My Little Angel" shown in philharmony in Szczecin, video "Bushes in which our ancestors lived" made during art project in Belarus, and short animation "Dżennet" commissioned by Museum of Emigration in Gdynia.
Created short hybrid animation "Moon" for HBO pandemic anthology "At Home", also animated part of Netflix series "Hounds Hill" in 2023 completed his newest short animated movie "ZIMA".
Steakhouse
Špela Čadež
Slovenia
2021
09:30
The steak has been marinating for a few days now. The pan is heated. Franc’s stomach is rumbling. But Liza’s co-workers surprise her with a birthday party. Will she be home on time?
Špela Čadež
Špela Čadež has been working as an independent animation director and producer since 2008. Interested mainly in hands-on analogue traditional animation, her films have received more than 100 awards worldwide. BOLES (2013), a short puppet animation, received e.g. a Grand Prix at DOK Leipzig, Golden Spike at the Valladollid Festival and was a Nominee for the Cartoon d'Or, while the multiplane cut-out animation NIGHTHAWK (2016) was awarded main prizes at e.g. HAFF Festival Holland, Animafest Zagreb, and was screened in selections at festivals such as Clermont Ferrand, Annecy and Sundance. Špela Čadež is member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
